How can HR professionals speak the language of the business?

It is a common held belief in many organizations that HR professionals are unrealistic and don’t really have in-depth and thorough knowledge of the business and its context. It is believed that they usually work in silos and are detached from the rest of the organization. Moreover, the HR profession is believed to be less sophisticated, accurate and specialized as other professions in the organization. This is because the HR profession doesn’t have a clear certification path and it could be open for any professional to join. Another reason is the fact that activities can rarely be bench marked successfully with other competitors or similar organizations in the field as there are no standardized accepted levels and globalized measures. Finally, it is believed that HR professional are more into qualitive data related to attitudes, feeling and opinions rather than quantitative data related to figures and numbers which boardroom members would like to hear.

HR Metrics and Analytics training course aims at providing more efficient and aligned HR function and perspective. Firstly, the course sets the foundation by showing how to align HR activities to business strategy. It guides the participants through the steps needed to build a successful HR strategy that responds and meets the needs of the business. This provides HR professionals with the ability to become true business partners gaining their seat at the boardroom table. They become more business savvy concentrating on what matters most such as revenues, ROI, reduction of costs, cost avoidance, expenses, etc.

This training course then discusses HR measures, metrics and analytics defining the terms and showing their types and relations. The training course emphasizes the importance of using a combination of measures to gauge the business success. Each organization needs to select and build measures that are most useful and informative in their business context. The question is not how many metrics the business is using but what metrics it is using. HR professional need to select metrics which are most efficient, effective and those that have business impact. They should also utilize analytics that have predictive and futuristic outlook to help their organization plan effectively. Consequently, HR is affected by the business strategy as much as it affects this strategy and the direction of the organization. Traditional organizational analysis methods or single dimensional metrics are not really helpful because HR professionals need to look at 5 or 10 years from now and speculate how the workforce market will look like.

The training course also discusses the necessity for HR professionals to understand and manage change. HR metrics are only useful if they point towards the need to act and change if required. The training course discusses the stages of change and the role of HR in each stage and how to manage this successfully. It also emphasizes the importance for HR professionals to partner with other departments specially IT and accounting.

Moreover, the training course finishes with a look at the future of HR and the new trends in the workplace. Organization structure of many organizations is becoming flatter and flatter and the traditional hierarchy or functional structures are diminishing. Project based teams are the norms of the future. HR should reevaluate all HR tools and approaches to accommodate this arrangement. Also, more understanding of the young generations and the new millennium’s needs and style of work is required. HR should benefit from marketing professionals to learn how to build a strong relation and value for the organization workforce. Learning and development will be at the top agenda of HR output for any organization.  

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