I care about and am committed to upgrading HR professionals to deliver value to all stakeholders by improving their skills! If you are reading this, in all probability, so are you.
 

 

Why?

Because of economic uncertainty (inflation, interest rates, recession), technological disruptions (open AI), societal pressures (ESQ, DEI), demographics (workforce generations and expectations), and the future of work (hybrid), attention to people and organization issues has become top of mind and center stage for business success as evidenced by the following:
 

• McKinsey and other studies with business executives rank technology, environmental uncertainty, and labor (people) as the top three challenges for business leaders.
• Global business summits (World Business Forum [WOBI], World Economic Forum at Davos, and others) increasingly focus on people and organization issues.
• The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in the US requires organizations to report “human capital” in annual disclosures signaling the increasing materiality of people issues.
• Attention to ESG has increased with more attention to the social (S) as not just general social trends, but specific people initiatives.
• Eighty percent of a publicly traded firm’s market value is tied to “intangibles” and the people-related issues are about 25 to 30 percent of that 80 percent.
• Employee mobility is high -- about 40 percent of employees are considering leaving their jobs. Employee engagement scores have dropped recently.
• Boards of directors pay increased attention to the people and organization issues.

HR professionals have a unique opportunity and responsibility to respond to this increased attention and deliver human capability (talent + leadership + organization + HR function) that creates sustainable value for all stakeholders (employees, strategy, customers, investors, and communities). Reports and curations of this research and experience increasingly show up in LinkedIn posts, podcasts, webinars, conferences, newsletters, books, and articles.

Simply stated: HR matters! Now more than ever.

How?

We have many options to upgrade HR professionals: selection, performance accountability, career mosaics with new roles, 360’s, coaching, and special projects, but let me focus this post on training and development. Over the past few decades, I (with colleagues) have probably trained over 100,000 HR professionals in many settings. Let me propose some ways to upgrade HR professionals with both content (the playbook for what is learned) and process (the pedagogy for how it is learned).

Content (Playbook): What Should HR Professionals Know and Do

Upgrading HR professionals start by defining the playbook for what HR professionals should be, know, and do to deliver value. Too often, I see well-intended lists of competencies, or skills in today’s parlance, which leaves me pondering: Which of these listed competencies will deliver the most value to stakeholders (employees, strategy, customers, investors, communities)? Becoming a more effective HR professional goes beyond having and demonstrating competence, to mastering targeted competencies that will deliver the highest value to stakeholders. Not everything worth doing is worth doing well, and prioritizing competencies based on how much value they create becomes critical to content.

To ensure impactful content requires what I call insights along three dimensions: theory, research, and solutions (figure 1). The combination of these insights provides a playbook for upgrading HR professionals.

Process (Pedagogy): How to Boost HR Competence?

The process focuses on how development occurs by thoughtfully responding to pedagogical questions.

Where does learning occur? We have found that learning occurs on the job (50 percent) with assignments, projects, coaching, and mentoring, in education (30 percent) with training and development, and in life experience (20 percent) with community involvement and personal growth. Upgrading HR should use all three agendas for learning.

Who receives or attends development? We have seen targeted development for individuals where someone (often new to a role) attends a public program (e.g., University) and acquires ideas relevant to the new role and a network of colleagues for future learning. In companies, we have seen development academies where targeted HR professionals come together to learn as a community. Combining individual public programs and in-house development, we have also experienced HR teams of five come to a consortium where they learn as a team and apply the content (playbook) to their work setting through a sponsored project. Upgrading HR comes from developing the right people in the right way.

Who teaches? Upgrading HR professionals may be done by oneself through personal learning, often with virtual programs. In development courses, faculty should have deep expertise in the latest ideas and how to implement them.  In-company programs often include customers and investors as faculty so that HR professionals see the stakeholder value they intend to create.

How does teaching occur? Pedagogy has many options (as seen in Figure 2), each of which can be used for development. Learning solutions, less often used but often with more impact, occur where the challenges to be discussed in class come from the participants themselves, not a presentation, case, or facilitated discussion. When learners define real problems they are facing, training can focus on solving those problems rather than gaining more generic insights, thus upgrading HR professionals and their individual needs.
How do we use and leverage technology? Technology enables virtual learning to occur asynchronously, for genAI to become an integral part of learning to answer questions, and for those who participate in a learning experience to continue to be connected after the course. Often upgrading HR occurs outside of a classroom through technology.

How do we measure results? Measuring the development of HR professionals may come from personal growth as tracked by self-assessment or improvements in a 360 survey with perceived performance by others. Measuring collective HR improvement may be a 360 on the HR department, by identifying the impact of investments in human capability on stakeholder value through research.

How do we transfer learning? One of the most difficult challenges of upgrading HR through development requires transferring ideas from the learning setting into daily actions. Such learning transfer may come from personal action plans with specific steps, timelines, and accountabilities, often supported by coaching. It may also come from project action plans when the learning solution becomes institutionalized.

Summary

For HR professionals to rise to their current opportunities, upgrades are often required. The summary assessment and actions in Figure 3 may be used to guide progress.

Author Bio

Dave Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and a partner at The RBL Group, a consulting firm focused on helping organizations and leaders deliver value.

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