Week 2 DiscussionCOLLAPSE

Aligning Talent Development with Business Operations

A core theme in our readings this week is the importance of a close relationship between HR and the operation of the business. In Powerful, McCord emphasizes that every single employee has to understand the business.

• What processes does your organization have in place to support communication between HR and business-unit leadership in the areas of succession planning and strategy? Explain how these are implemented and what is and is not working well.
• What steps can companies that do not have such processes in place take to ensure strong alignment between the HR function and the Mission, Values, and Strategy of the business? Include specific references to this week's materials and/or additional sources to support your response.

Strategy is an often discussed but often misunderstood aspect of business operations. That may be one reason we require a strategy course here in the curriculum. We ask you to think about the correlation of the workforce strategy and the assessment of the talent you have in the context of the business strategy. That is a bit difficult if you do not understand how strategy is formulated or worse what the organization's business strategy is. You would be surprised how many organizations put in the time and effort to establish a strategy and then never communicate it to the people that have to make it happen. I have posted a video this week by Michael Porter – one of the best-known strategy experts in the world – discussing the forces that affect the business strategy. Take it on board and you will have knowledge many others in your organization will lack and it will enhance your credibility.

Post your initial response by Wednesday, midnight of your time zone, and reply to at least 2 of your classmates' initial posts by Sunday, midnight of your time zone.​

Ist response to 

Stacey Lewis

Good evening, Dr. Wallace, Professor Cairns, and Classmates,

The Process our Company.

The process that our organization have in place to support communication between HR and business-unit leadership in the areas of succession planning and strategy; is that we have and open-door policy. We can speak with our manager first, and then her manager, our trainer, and then our human resource manager when situations or strategies arises between our locations and our call center. Our manager also shares our company’s mission and values, and she keeps us informed of what our business goes through day to day. (1)

How we implement succession planning and strategy.

In addition to our open-door policy our manger makes sure that every agent has their responsibility in a role to complete. I work in a car rental agency call center and we have so many roles to fill. When our manger is out our location managers look to me to fill her shoes with the knowledge and training, she provided, and our HR department has provided too. (2). It is important to be able to handle our call center like our manager does when she is not available.  Because the organizations will know understand we are doing the greatest work in our business and with our customers.

The steps companies can take if they do not have a strong alignment.

The steps that our company can take to ensure a strong alignment between the HR function and Mission, Values, Strategy of the business are as follows: start with business priorities, have corporate objectives, divisional priorities, performance indicators, look to have a road map of where the business is going in 12 months, and over the next three years. Next, team leader and HR leader how are we contributing to the company, build on our team’s priorities which allow the company to build and know where they are striving to go. (3)

Thank you

Stacey Lewis

References:

1: JWI 522 Strategic Partnering with the C-Suite Week Two Lecture Notes

2: Sarah K. White. August 29, 2018. What is succession planning? A key talent strategy for business.

3. Jennifer Carpenter. Alignment. JWI 522 Week 2. Video

2nd person to respond to

 Rosa Perz

Hello Professors and Classmates:

Below are my answers to this week's DQ:

• What processes does your organization have in place to support communication between HR and business-unit leadership in succession planning and strategy? Explain how these are implemented and what is and is not working well. 

      I will speak of my fourteen years of experience working at General Electric, where strategy and business updates were constant and for the whole company. At least every quarter, all employees were part of a business update. Our Executive team talked about Sales, wins, the current state of the business, HR items, Safety items, and a Financial Overview. I truly enjoyed the calls as they were comprehensive. Additionally, the Finance team had a deep dive each month on financials and how our team progressed towards goals we set from the beginning of the year. HR was part of many conversations; their central role was evaluating employees for the pipeline and future promotions). I always felt they were connected, and if an employee was not 100% informed of what was going on with the company, that came from their manager's lack of communication.  I agree with Patty McCord as she explains to each person the business's strategy as if you were talking to your mother (1). Everyone has different perspectives, and being in-tune with what the business is all about is the responsibility of the executive team, the managers, and honestly, the person. 

• What steps can companies that do not have such processes in place take to ensure strong alignment between the HR function and the Mission, Values, and Strategy of the business? Include specific references to this week's materials and/or additional sources to support your response.

Communicate! Over-communicate, especially in times of a crisis, like the pandemic we went through in 2020, and we are still adapting. I found an article this week on HR Dive that talks about all the extra work that HR professionals are doing because of the challenges brought up by the COVID pandemic (2). Interesting read, and the subjects worry employees right now (well-being program, transition to work from home, pay adjustments for employees working from home vs at the office, among others). I believe HR must take their role as a significant part of the organization. They make adjustments to current policies and even completely change how employees work and are evaluated at the company. It is a challenging time for any HR professional, but an excellent opportunity to shine and bring about their experiences to improve its morale and bottom line. 

Regards, 
-Rosy

References:

1. Patty McCord. 2017. Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility. 

1. HR Dive. Ryan Golden. March 22, 2021. Why are so many HR professionals performing work that falls outside HR?. https://www.hrdive.com/news/why-are-so-many-hr-professionals-performing-work-that-falls-outside-hr/596895/

​