One of the main conclusions reached from the research carried out by Hutchinson and Purcell into the role of frontline managers (2003) was that ‘bringing policies to life and leading was among the most
Applications of HCM ❚ 117 important factors in explaining the difference between success and mediocrity in people management’. HCM can help to support and develop line managers in this exacting role by providing them with information on how well they are doing as people managers in such areas as exercising leadership, productivity, improving customer service and controlling employee turnover and absenteeism.
Line managers can be provided with the outcome of surveys of leadership, engagement and commitment and customer views about service levels. Dashboards can be set up on the intranet which, as in the Nationwide Building Society, provide a traffic-light system for telling managers how they are doing under various headings. This is accompanied by suggested actions that the managers should take to improve their performance. The metrics are therefore useful as a tool for HR to encourage managers to take certain actions and to convince them of the value of implementing HR processes.
Many of the practitioners interviewed for this book stressed that metrics alone, while providing managers with information, would not necessarily be enough to drive performance. Indeed in some instances metrics may be the source of poor performance if they encourage the wrong behaviour. One manager gave a graphic example of this, explaining how managers were given the results of an a�itude survey where respondents gave a generally negative view of the organization.
They were told that improvements must be made but not how to do it, with the result that some told their employees to ‘give the right answers or else!’ Metrics must be supported by suggested action and explanation if they are going to result in be�er support and ultimately be�er management.
Possibly some of the best application of metrics arises when they are used as a basis for HR to provide managers with good-quality advice and guidance and as evidence of learning and development needs, collectively or individually.
Part 3
The role and future of HCM
8
The role of HR in HCM
As noted in Chapter 2, the whole area of HCM presents both an opportunity and a challenge for the HR profession. It is an opportunity because it provides a vehicle for demonstrating that people are adding value and for indicating ways in which value-adding behaviour can be encouraged. It can help to transform the rhetoric surrounding the concept of HR people as business partners into reality. It can enhance the contribution HR can make to shaping business strategy and enable the function to align its strategies to business and people needs. It is a challenge because it means that HR must adopt a business-oriented as well as a people-oriented approach to its work and it has to do this by processes of measurement and analysis which must be much more rigorous and focused than has typically been the case in the past.
HCM is a business-oriented activity. Because the HR function plays or should play an important part in running the business, it can make a vital contribution to HCM by developing metrics, analysing and reporting on the implications of the data and proposing and planning HR actions on the basis of that analysis. HCM can also provide information to line managers that will help to improve their effectiveness in managing people and HCM can be used by HR to improve the HR function’s own effectiveness. Walters (2006) suggests that ‘effective HR processes need to be underpinned by a more rigor- ous foundation of both quantitative and qualitative analysis than has o�en traditionally been the case’.
122 ❚ The role and future of HCM
This chapter explores the following aspects of the HR function’s involvement with HCM:
❚ the concept of HR specialists as business partners and the relev- ance of HCM to that concept;
❚ the role of HR in developing metrics and analysing and using the information obtained;
❚ how, with the help of HCM, HR can be strategic and make the business case in order to convince management of the need to take action;
❚ the role of HR in enhancing engagement and commitment;
❚ the need to work with other functions, especially the finance function.
The skills that HR will need to develop and contribute to effective HCM are discussed in Chapter 9.