HR Decision Makers not Involved in Business Strategy
The survey also found that 57 percent of respondents feel that HR is chiefly used for communicating corporate objectives rather than contributing to them. Just 10 percent of respondents indicated that employee objectives were aligned with organizational strategies and over half agree that objectives were only partially aligned at best. Nearly one-third of companies lack a mechanism for rewarding employees based on performance and a meager 14 percent were confident that high performance was rewarded adequately.
“The research highlights the endemic problems within modern corporate HR functions, which, despite their best endeavors over the last decade or so, aren’t actually aligned with business when creating corporate strategy. What this means in reality is that HR continues to be the messenger of Corporate strategy, rather than part of the instigation of it. This really is a missed opportunity, as HR can play a critical role to ensure that the creation and maintenance of strong links between corporate strategy and personal objectives to deliver on-going business success,” said Marc Bishop, director of HR consulting, PlusHR.
He continued, “Employee costs are often a substantial cost for organizations, in many cases even the largest. It is clearly therefore important to retain and maximize this valuable asset, but by failing to reward high performance, an organization’s future performance could be undermined as employees become demoralized and are not incentivized to perform at higher levels – a particular concern when the higher performing employees are also the most prone to leave.”