Despite notions that HR has solidified its proverbial “seat at the table” in the last few years, the true promise of strategic HR may still be elusive for some organizations.
For instance, a recent Hudson RPO survey found that more than half of HR professionals believe their function is viewed as an “order taker” rather than a strategic partner, Hudson’s Jake Zabkowicz and Jeff Bettinger recently wrote for HR Executive.
What will it take for organizations to enable strategic HR to flourish?
HR Executive recently spoke with two HR executives who shed light on how HR can maximize and measure their role as strategic partners to the business: Keysa Minnifield, vice president of HR for Eurest and ESFM, part of Compass Group USA, the world’s largest food service and facilities company; and Shereen Solaiman, chief people officer at biotech research firm Myriad Genetics.
Here are their recommendations:
1. Lean into data, but don’t forget the human touch
While metrics around retention and time-to-hire help HR gauge the impact of its work, Minnifield says, people professionals can’t lose sight of the value of—and insights from—human interaction.
“My ability to have conversations and engage with people on a regular basis … helps me to see how we’re doing,” she says.
See also: Why EX, DEI continue to be priorities in this org’s talent strategy
Her organization encourages all supervisors to have quarterly conversations with their reports to understand their own effectiveness, a principle she personally employs with both her team and leaders across the company.
“I have these ongoing conversations: How is HR doing? What should we stop, start or continue? How can I be a better partner?” she says. “Having those conversations is critical.”
So is being a good listener, Minnifield adds, which can enable HR to “extrapolate from [those conversations] where we need to follow up on to get better at what we do.”
2. Align to business goals
Solaiman says it’s key that HR keenly understands business goals and not get “too caught up in their own rules, regulations and processes” as they plot out talent strategy.
Often, HR leaders get sidetracked by having to be the “no people,” the ones to reject employee or team ideas, she says. Breaking free from the traditional transactional nature of the function can enable HR to focus more on the bigger-picture strategy.
See also: The outsized impact of employee benefits on HR’s value to an org
“Put everything aside and just try to understand: Where are we going? What are we trying to do?” she says. “Then, reflect that back to the business and figure out the best way to do this—in a consistent way, in a legal way, in a way that doesn’t cost a crazy amount of money.”
To some extent, HR will always have transactional components, Minnifield adds. “That’s the nature of the job; you’ve got to do those pieces of it,” she says.
However, HR leaders should intentionally spend most of their time thinking about the future. How is the function going to design benefits to appeal to a multigenerational workforce? How can employee experience be tailored to drive retention?
“How do you position the HR team to be that strategic thought partner?” she says. “That’s what we really strive for.”
3. Put feedback into action
The employee voice can be an important driver of a more strategic HR function, Solaiman says.
At Myriad Genetics, the HR team takes “a lot of pride” in the organization’s employee engagement scores—84% of workers say the company is a great place to work, she notes. Yet, sustaining those numbers requires HR to both continuously listen to employees and respond to what they need.
“I look at [those numbers] and say, ‘OK, where can we improve? What are people asking for more of?’ ” Solaiman says. For instance, in a recent engagement survey, employees said they wanted to know about the “why” behind business decisions and be looped into processes earlier.
See also: This company publishes 360-degree feedback. Is it working?
“We’re listening to them and making those changes,” she says. “I go back to those engagement scores and say, ‘Are we going up in those scores?’ What gets measured gets done.”
The same holds for employee focus groups, which Myriad Genetics started within the last two years. HR continues to revisit responses, evaluating both the positive and critical feedback—and asking, “What are doing to action that?”
4. Leverage diverse experiences
Minnifield refers to her career journey as a lattice, rather than a ladder—and it’s a path that has helped her become a more aware and strategic HR leader.
She brings forward lessons from previous roles in operations, communications and labor relations, for instance, to her day-to-day work and in how she interacts with her team and employees companywide. Having spent time in other functions, Minnifield says, enables her to better appreciate the challenges such employees face and envision how she can improve their employee experience.
Leaning on a diversity of experiences and exposures, she says, also lets HR take a more holistic approach to its role in executive leadership.
“We’re not just sitting at the table as HR leaders, but as true business partners,” she says. “We’re talking about the people component of it, absolutely, but we’ve had experience in other areas—so, how do we bring all of those to bear to be the best partners we can be?”
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