How can HR align itself with the business goals?

Talk with the leaders, understand the business, and understand the goals. Once you know this information, it will be easier to see how programs within your scope can support or enhance the overall business strategy.

Then, keep up with it, it is not a one-time event. Staying involved allows you to predict future needs, timing of new initiatives, and how/when to adjust current programs.

The key to this is to become truly integrated as a function across other departments. HR that is a stand alone function will not be able to be aligned to a company's business goals because the company will not look to HR to be included. HR needs to work more on making sure that they span every department to offer their insight on "human" issues and work their way into being tangible and visible. Then the Company will look to HR to be viable and they will also include HR related goals as part of their business strategy.

As a former HR VP, and one who came into situations where HR was regarded as Administrative, I did 3 things:

A. Interview every one of the senior executives in the business to understand how
they see HR supporting their functional objectives and what measures they will use
to determine HR's effectiveness.
B Conduct an HR Functional Assessment:
1. Look at where and on what, HR dollars are being spent to deliver HR
service.
2. Include an HR Staff Optimization Assessment to understand where HR staff
members are spending their time. This looks at process and activities
3. Conduct an HR Service Delivery Assessment to understand what line
managers expectations are of HR.
4. Conduct an Employee Engagement Assessment to understand what is most
important to employees and what you can do to retain and attract talent..
5. Benchmark your practices against top performers
6. Conduct an HR technology assessment to determine how you can use
technology to improve fact based decision making, reduce costs, and increase
HR efficiency.
7. Use the results of your organization's customer satisfaction and measurement
data to design your HR systems. For example, you should be hiring
employees who are capable of exceeding your customers expectations, and
who's values are in alignment with the promise of your organization's brand.
C. Create an HR Scorecard that is directly aligned with the Strategic Imperatives of
the business.

With all this information, you should have all you need to craft the HR Strategy. Get feedback from the senior team, determine how they want to be kept abreast of the progress you make each month, and schedule reoccurring meetings with each executive to discuss their Human Capital needs.

If you do ALL of this, you will be seen as a Strategic Business Partner, aligned with the Strategic Imperatives of your business.

If you want any help doing any of these things, you can reach me at 216.295.9589 or BDLowenthal@LionValleyPartners.com

Eurgh.....this whole debate depresses me to be honest. Who is HR? The function or the activities? How do we align? Align with what? The business strategy involves people doing stuff....so what is more aligned than that?

The question starts with an assumption that HR is separate from the business. My personal view is that if you talk like that or think like that, then you're already introducing a degree of separation.

So back to the question....surely the answer is to stop focussing on HR as being something in itself and to start focussing on people as being an integral part of your competitive advantage.

As others have said, align HR with all business units. This doesn't just mean include the head of HR in one monthly or quarterly C-level meeting. It means that the HR leader must be part of all company-wide strategic discussions and meetings. Since a company's strengths are only as strong as its employees, and HR is the department that is responsible for hiring employees, it is critical for all business units to value HR. That said, when employees perform above par (e.g., over-achieve and bring in that unexpected sale or develop a trend-setting product), the business units need to keep HR in the loop. This way, HR can sing the praises of the employees who achieved. On the reverse, if employees don't work out, HR needs to own its involvement in that scenario when appropriate. Bottom line, HR needs to be a part of a company's team, just as marketing, sales, R&D, finance/accounting, etc.

Debbie,

You state that HR need to be a part of strategic discussions and meetings. That HR needs to be kept in the loop on when things go well and take ownership when things do not. While I don't disagree, I will say that this is not as easy as just being invited to be a part of the overall strategy of the organization.

HR needs to first prove their value/worth to the organization and show leaders why HR needs to be a part of the overall strategy. Strategy is usually about growth, financial health, and continuous improvement. HR needs to understand the business in order to be a partner to the business. We have to show how we impact the overall strategy of the organization.

In order for the company to grow and move to the next level, we need to hire the right people, get them on-boarded/trained, and retain them. HR has a direct part in that. We impact those results.

HR can tighten controls on recruitment costs, turnover costs, training costs, etc. We have a hand in ensuring the financial health of the organization. If we, as HR practitioners, are not looking at ways in which we can positively impact the bottom line, then we are not effectively demonstrating our value.

Continuous improvement and innovation should be something that is always at the forefront of the HR practitioner's mind. There is always a better way to build a mousetrap. With the advancements in technology, there is no reason why we can not eliminate waste in processes. By creating efficiency, we make the jobs of our customers (our Leaders, Managers, and employees), not to mention our own jobs that much easier. Again, showing our what???

Value!

In the end, that is what it all boils down to. In order for HR to be aligned to the business, HR has to realize that they are a revenue center and not just a cost center. HR needs to stop playing the victim and start being the game changers that we know how to be.