SENIOR EXECUTIVES the world over have rated their HR departments as the worst performing of all their business functions.
SENIOR EXECUTIVES the world over have rated their HR departments as the worst performing of all their business functions.
A global survey of 555 senior executives, including 226 CEOs, found that only 4 per cent rated the performance of their HR function as excellent, while a third rated HR as below average to poor.
This compared with 53 per cent of executives rating finance as above average or excellent, while customer service (52 per cent), and both marketing/sales as well as operations and production (44 per cent) also rated well.
“Alone of the functions under review, more people rated the performance of HR bad than good,”according to the report, produced by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
“No other function – not even the notoriously unlovable IT department – came close to being this unappreciated.”
The report also found that finding high quality people in multiple territories is a major global headache for global companies.
“The chances of attracting and retaining talented staff is enhanced if they can see that career opportunities stretch all the way up to the top of the company,” it said.
“Knowing that senior vice-president is as far as non-nationals ever get in the organisation is a recipe for demotivated global staff.”
Andrew Palmer, author of the report, said people issues are near the top of the list of headaches that a global firm has.
“Finding and retaining talented staff, particularly in the hottest emerging markets of China and India, is a universal bugbear for senior executives,” he said.
“The need for successful talent management is immense, yet the HR function is the least well-regarded of the lot.”
According to Palmer, however, these ratings are not the fault of HR, which often has responsibility without control. In practice, he said, the big decisions about talent, from recruitment on, tend to be made by other people.
“Career development and job satisfaction is in the hands of line managers, not HR.”
That said, there are things HR professionals can and should do, according to Palmer.
“Making a better case that HR matters is one thing – HR needs to prove its importance to the organisation in hard financial terms,”he said.
“Taking control of key people-related processes is another – which requires hard-hitting senior HR professionals with the skills to influence and persuade the people at the top of the company.”
