Take it from the top
ANNE RICHES
CAHRI, Director
The Riches Group
HR policy should always be set within an organisation’s overall corporate objectives, values and strategies. In the final analysis, it’s not HR policy per se, but overall strategic direction that’s critical. Therefore, an approach to people issues should be developed as part of the strategy direction set at the top corporate level.
The job of the HR director is to work with the executive group in putting that strategy together and then, once it is agreed, to make it happen. That means developing strategic relationships with all the business unit owners and any external stakeholders.
I think that the HR profession has done a good job of changing its focus from personnel to strategic in recent times. More HR people now understand that HR has a major role in contributing to the bottom line.
But the next step is for HR to develop an external, as well as an internal focus. It needs to look inwardly to the effective implementation of HR strategy, but must also monitor external issues and the wider ramifications of ‘people actions’ the organisation takes. Examples include some of the recent payments of unjustifiably huge salaries and bonuses.
So the HR director has a major responsibility to make the people strategy happen, within the overall direction, which comes from the chief executive and the executive committee, and is signed off by the board. And they must also be bold enough to speak up if the proposed strategies stretch outside the balanced needs of the various stakeholders, including employees and shareholders.
None of this has any meaning unless the people who set the strategy abide by it. The chief executive and executive committee must themselves commit to and participate in the implementation of HR strategy by modelling the way and being actively involved in the people issues. It’s the same with ethical behaviour—there’s no point having a code of ethics or a set of corporate values unless it is led by example from the top.
Interviews by PAUL SOMERVILLE, a freelance journalist.
This is an extract from the article "How should HR policy be made?" from HR Magazine, Issue Sept 2004
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