Employee engagement? Or time to engage HR
On the back of the Kingston/CIPD Employee Engagement research, the business blogosphere seems to be crackling with a range of views on how to better ‘engage’ employees. Yet there appears to be precious little discussion regarding how a Board’s decision to invest in more effective employee engagement will specifically support the organisation’s effort to attract its market and achieve business goals. Too often, HR initiatives take an overtly internal perspective and are nodded through without agreement on the business case, the definition of success or the measurement criteria demanded of more market-oriented initiatives.
So, well-rehearsed comments by HR reps, such as those referred to at this article http://www.delta7.com/a-lack-of-engagement/ on employee engagement, betray an HR demeanour which can be paraphrased as: ‘Those other disciplines don’t respect HR because our subject is perceived to be soft & fluffy’.
I believe greatly in the role of HR, and in particular the important role it must take on in the future as the guardian of what is truly a service organisation’s most important asset – its people. However, as a marketer, I also recognise the commercial reality under which most businesses have to operate. HR has to recognise this too, just as the Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Operations and even the Finance & Administration functions do.
Existing in isolation is no longer an option. In order to earn the respect they crave from other, more market-oriented disciplines, HR reps are going to have to learn to speak the language of the marketplace. Only then will their efforts to develop and enhance much sought-after characteristics, such as a fully engaged workforce, be seen by other disciplines to be in tune with the overall goals of the business.
Or perhaps my vision of HR and Marketing as equal partners, speaking the same language and eventually orienting the entire business towards the marketplace is flawed. What do you think?
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