If People Are Your Greatest Asset …
In a recent issue of our company e-newsletter, I asked the question: If people are your greatest asset, why do so few HR Managers become CEO? There were several interesting responses to our question. Here are a few of them:
"I believe the HR function plays a peripheral role in most organizations. From my own observations, marketing, finance and operations departments tend to have a more direct link to the actual business - hence to the CEO. HR tends to focus more on internal issues (of managing people) somewhat like the IT department."
"Individuals with training specifically in human resources may not have the skill set that allows movement cross functionally. This may hinder promotion opportunities."
"Human resource professionals, by virtue of their responsibilities to employees, often need to play a neutral role between employees and management, moving them away from the actual running of the business."
"We recently dismissed our long time Director of Human Resources and following a search decided not to replace him. This was, in part, because we believe that in a people-oriented service business, like our company, that hiring, employee relations, training, and managing people should be part of an operating manager's core competencies and not delegated tasks."
"I have a theory and it is that for the past century the focus of organizations has been ONLY on the bottom line. In general, lip service is being offered to employees about the greatest resource being people."
"We are a throw-away society and it has moved into our personnel policies as well. Having said this, we are beginning to understand that if people come first, the business is more successful. Soon, I hope, human resource professionals will take over organizations."
"Few HR Managers become CEO because they focus on the people (care and feeding) and the plethora of legislative requirements so that they don't have time to thoroughly understand the sales (revenue generating) and financial (cost control) aspects of the business."
"A lot of companies say people are their greatest asset but don't support it in policy and in the culture they create. Consequently very few companies have an HR person in a position where he or she is part of the senior management team making key operational decisions."
Gerald Walsh, CMA, is the President and Founder of Gerald Walsh Associates Inc., an executive search, career transition and executive coaching firm.
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