Contibuted by David Link, Managing Partner Knowledge Infusion
We all know that success of an organization is dependent on customers ��� who they are, how they buy and how often they visit are elementary factors that influence volume of products/services a company offers. The type of experience delivered is increasingly the difference between ���customer for life��� (success) or ���customer never again��� (not success). Leading organizations understand that employees are ���internal��� customers and the direct link to delivering the ���external��� customer experience. The type of experience HR (and its partners across the organization) delivers influences how talent is attracted, developed, motivated and retained in a similar quest to achieve and sustain organizational success. The Customer Experience has dual and important meaning to the area of HR strategy and transformation.
The February 2007 edition of Harvard Business Review contains an excellent article focused on ���Understanding the Customer Experience.��� The article presents important concepts on how organizations are moving past classic Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to fully understand how experience influences customers positively. When experience is understood, processes can be crafted to predictably and consistently deliver it to customers. While the article discusses this primarily from an ���external��� customer perspective, our work as HR transformers is heavily leveraging the same set of principles. The authors briefly note HR correlation in an article sidebar. A key focus of this updated thinking is the power of metrics to capture data and develop meaningful measures that help to understand the customer. Here again, a direct correlation to the emerging metrics activity around human capital.
So often, business activity occurring outside of the HR function can be powerful influence in engaging executives in HR transformation activity. So often in our consulting work, valuable articles like this, provide the extra volts to make an executive light bulb fully illuminate on the issues critical to Human Capital Management and Talent Management. How often are you venturing into executive journals to find support for HR business initiatives?
For the most part, our observation as consultants suggests that many HR leaders are missing an important opportunity to leverage mainstream (non HR) business thinking as a method to engage executives in a strategic dialogue that leads to HR technology transformation action. Is your discussion on Portal for HR and self service activities languishing (many are)? Failing to gain traction in having HR viewed as a strategic business partner? Take a read on articles like ���Understanding the Customer Experience��� and have a copy of HBR on top of your portfolio at your next executive meeting ��� let me know how it goes.
To view the executive summaries of the February 2007 edition of Harvard Business Review, Click Here
Another infusion of knowledge..
(p.s. the article on how manager decision making can sabotage corporate strategy has some interesting ties to HR initiatives as well including talent acquisition and metrics)
