Dave Ulrich
The American HR guru publishes
a blueprint for HR transformation

If you are an HR Director, make sure you meet your company’s customers and always attend  board meetings. And don’t keep describing yourself as a 'business partner'. That will become self evident once you’ve implemented every step of the HR Transformation blueprint described by American HR guru Dave Ulrich in his major work, 'The HR Value Proposition'*.


Dave Ulrich: "Human resources work does not begin with HR – it begins with the business."

The HR function is about to reap the rewards of decades of hard work and break free at last of the bonds of transactional HR. Shared service centres and outsourcing of administrative procedures have proved their worth and HRDs now find themselves exactly where they wanted to be. So, now they are free. But free to do what? It’s a question that needs to be answered, urgently – and one that CEOs are all too ready to ask, bluntly. In his latest book*, today’s most influential American HR guru describes the following amusing conversation between a jovial senior line manager and an HR manager at an annual company party: "I don't know why we don’t just outsource the whole thing". Gulp!

"You ARE the business!"
“But … I’m a business partner,” the HR manager is bound to reply. Why not a 'strategic player', or 'a full contributor' mutters Ulrich ironically. It’s a waste of time. Does a petroleum geologist in an oil company need to aspire to be a partner in the business? He is the business!

Now it’s the HRDs’ turn to 'be the business' by bringing value to stakeholders. Let’s begin with the customers. Take, for example, a company that has recently lost market share and put it down to problems with pricing policy. But the HRD organises a satisfaction survey and creates a stir: the real problem was service! "The company had been providing standardized technical training that included little work on customer relations." Reading Ulrich’s book is bound to inspire that kind of initiative. HRDs will soon be inviting themselves to meet their biggest customers and involving them in their recruitment, training … and even compensation policies!

So HRDs can make a much bigger contribution to results than just a reduction in labour costs or headcount. The notion of sustainable development is a critical part of any analysis made by the most important stakeholder of all, the shareholder: "Half the market value of a firm is not directly tied to present earnings. Instead, it is tied to what the financial community calls intangibles (…) involving investments in organization and people..."

 

"To what extent do we have a clear employee value proposition that lays out what is expected of employees and what they get in return?"

Then there are the internal stakeholders, employees and line managers: to what extent do we create organisation capabilities, asks Ulrich, that will turn strategy into action? To what extent do we have a clear employee value proposition that lays out what is expected of employees and what they get in return?

Dave Ulrich and Wayne Brockbank’s book is both a blueprint and a toolbox overflowing with all you need to achieve real HR Transformation. Without question, its real merit lies in the fact that it helps to prevent HRDs from confusing what brings HR Transformation about and what HR Transformation actually is – preventing them, in other words, from confusing the ends and the technological means. "While e-HR may be a part of an overall transformation, it is merely a way to deliver HR administration services. HR transformation must change the way we think about HR's role in delivering value to customers, shareholders, managers, and employees…" This is essential reading.

* The HR Value Proposition, Dave Ulrich and Wayne Brockbank, Harvard Business School Press, 2005, 316 p

> Dave Ulrich's and Wayne Brockbank's bios