Andy Gebavi's comment on this past Monday's blog post (HR Importance vs. Influence) was terrific (thanks, Andy!). And it got me thinking. In working with clients, I often observe that the senior HR leadership (VPs and above) does understand the need for HR to become more business savvy, to learn how the organization operates, makes money, identifies markets and products and the like. This is a good thing, a great start. I also observe Senior HR leadership - those that are business savvy - spend so much time with the business that they sometimes may neglect their own function in two critical ways.
One: sharing, building, and discussing the business throughout ALL of the HR so that the frontline HR folks are as knowledgeable about the business as the senior HR folks are. To Andy's point that line managers do not understand "Talent Management" as we (HR) understand it, I would say, "Yes, true". I would also say that the frontline HR folks who interact with the line managers don't know enough about the business to effectively educate the line managers so that they can understand the value talent management brings to the business.
Two: HR operations are left to the upper-middle levels of HR management - Directors, Managers, etc. These folks are left to translate and operationalize HR and Talent Management strategy for HR, but are not afforded much interaction with the business itself because that interaction is dominated by senior HR leaders and / or the Directors / Managers are overwhelmed with leading the HR function and don't have time. Thus, a bit of a gully forms between senior HR Leadership and the rest of HR in terms of sharing business knowledge and building essential skills to better interact with the business about the business.
So, back to Monday's blog and the McKinsey study: what do you think accounts for the disparity between HR's point of view and line managers' point of view on HR's capabilities? And further, what can HR do to continue to close this gap? What role should HR leadership play here?