How can HR Professionals be more effective in working with their company's IT function?

I agree with John on this. It's a matter of showing genuine interest in the other department's work and understanding we all have a job to do, which ultimately is for the betterment of the organization.

The IT department, like the HR department, is generally understaffed and has a full plate of work to do. I think that planning and communicating any impending projects that will need IT intervention in the near and far future is critical. From what I have seen and experienced, the IT people I've worked with, have always appreciated knowing what was coming down the pike before it hit, even if the project was speculative. It makes them feel in the loop and part of the project rather than the consultant brought in to remedy the problem. It also gave me some insight into what other projects IT had pending so I felt in the loop with them. These small steps in relationship building can go a long way and ultimately forge mutual respect.

HR and IT should be allies because both groups are trying to find new ways to add value to the organization in the face of outsourcing and new technologies that make old ways of working obsolete.

If HR wants a new talent profiling system with key analytics to improve talent mobility - just as an example - both groups should work together to develop a joint delivery strategy with clear goals around what needs to be achieved, why and what business value it will add. IT needs to understand what HR is trying to achieve for the business and HR needs to understand the real economic, resource and time constraints involved. This requires conversation and joint planning.

Of course, technology is changing and becoming more business user focused and there are new solutions out there that HR can use that require little or no IT involvement. On some level, this should be a wake up call for IT. Nonetheless, no matter how user centric individual software and systems become, IT will always be needed to create a seamless business solution landscape so HR and IT still need to work together.

Bottom line: HR is IT's customer and IT is HR's business partner. If relations between these two key support functions are antagonistic the wrong people may be leading them.

Hello dear, Do you have HR IT Strategic Plan? If yes, I will appreciate if you could share. Thanks.

I've been in IT for the past 40 years from the trenches to the C-Level and most billets in-between. One recurring problem I encounter with HR is in the hiring of (and then keeping) good IT talent. HR departments are more or less the first order sieve for job applicants. I suppose that's a necessary evil because hiring managers are unwilling to spend time culling through countless resumes to select applicants. However, it is uncommon to find HR reps that really "grok" the practical and artistic side of IT. They'd have had to have had a career in IT themselves to get it and if they were successful, it's pretty unlikely that they'd be in HR.

The problem is that your typical HR rep will slavishly follow the Job Spec. So if it says "must be CISCO certified" they'll toss resumes that don't meet that spec, regardless of other considerations. The applicant may have spent the last 10 years in the military managing DOD networks but does not happen to have some certificate. The HR rep will say "don't put it in the Job Spec if you don't mean it." and that's fair. However, if the issue is getting the best TALENT then it's not about what certification you might have. Or worse, you, as a hiring manager find out about some "gem" of an applicant that can obviously do the job but because he/she doesn't meet the Job Spec in some fashion (maybe the spec says they need a four year degree and all they have is an associates degree with a boat load of experience and proven work record) and they'll be eliminated from consideration.

The hiring manager can't "overrule" HR and is told "sorry, they don't meet the Job Spec, you'll have to get the spec rewritten and approved before we can hire this person." That's just silly. The hiring manager is the one that has to live and die by what his staff can/cannot do. If I want to hire a vet who has clearly got the chops to do what I need but doesn't happen to have a college degree per the job spec, I should be able to do so. I don't need HR second guessing what I need in my department to get done what I need to get done for the enterprise. More than anything, I need HR to stop coming between me and qualified applicants and throwing roadblocks in my way when they don't "fit" the job spec to a tee.

HR has a proper role but it seems that more and more over the years HR has usurped the proper role of management in the employment process. They seem to view their domain as employment when it's the business unit that's actually doing the hiring, not HR. That overstepping doesn't help the enterprise, the hiring manager and it certainly doesn't help the qualified applicant. There is a reason that networking is the primary means to get the good jobs. You have to get past HR. HR is just an impeding bureaucracy in most large organizations when it comes to hiring.

If you don't think so, consider salary administration. That's been taken largely out of the hands of managers and given to HR. Here's a true story. We have an IT staffer whose been here over ten years. When he came on board he was married with no kids. Now he has four who are fast approaching middle school. Once he got on the "curve" he's been locked into the annual (minimal increase.) Now this fellow has taken pains to grow his technical talent beyond his peers and in particular he has skill in mobile technologies which are red hot right now and will be for the foreseeable future. He's about to leave because our HR policies won't let us give him the huge jump in salary he's due and the market will pay. His manager's hands are tied and have been for so long that they've forgotten how to "fight" for their staff. The fellows needs have grown, his skills have grown, he has insider knowledge that it will take his replacement at least two the three years to get up to speed. But we will lose him because he HAS to go elsewhere to meed the needs of his family because our HR salary policy won't let management do what needs to be done. It happens all the time. IT folks get mastery of new "hot" technology skill and have to move because they are locked to the HR salary curve with no where to go but out to get fair market value for their technical growth. Sadly, finding and training a new incoming hire will cost many times what it would have cost to simply pay the guy what he's worth. Not only that but we'll have to pay the new guy what he's worth when if we'd just given that to the experience hand, we'd have probably kept him.

So I'd like to see a reduction in HR involvement and interference in management life kind of like I'd like to see a reduction in government involvement in overall life. But sadly, both are bureaucracies with vested interest in expanding, not contracting their roles. At least we can vote the government bums out of office. What can you do with HR?