Results of activ8's latest research

Mind the Gap - The breakdown between HR and the Business

Although there has been much talk over recent years about HR stepping up to take its place at the leadership table, new research from activ8 highlights that there is still some way to go on this journey before HR can truly say they have arrived. Despite wide spread talk about becoming a strategic value-adding function, it appears the reality is very different with operational necessity rather than strategic value being king. The result? A startling gap between the opinions of human resources professionals and those in business management roles on a range of issues, including the recruitment strategy and the overall contribution of HR to the business.

The area of recruitment in particular threw up some worrying results. Of the organisations surveyed, 72% of HR respondents assigned a high priority to the statement ‘Anything that gets vacancies filled more quickly’, while only 28% of businesspeople felt this was relevant.

Laurence Collins, CEO of activ8 intelligence: “The results of our survey show conclusively that the human resources profession is chasing its own tail on some major business issues. It’s deeply worrying that 72% of the HR people we surveyed are more concerned with getting people in post than in making sure the right people are there in the first place, especially in view of the fact that our figures show that most businesses don’t see this as a priority.”

Efficient or effective?
So why after all the endless debates, restructures, outsourcing/in-sourcing and change programmes that HR tackle each year, is there still such an alarming gap between what HR think they need to do to add most value to their organisations and what the businesses think is important?

One potential reason that the research highlights is the focus HR are still placing on efficiency inputs rather than effectiveness outputs. Whilst one in 5 HR managers stated that improving recruitment administration was one of their top 3 priorities for the year, just 4% felt that improving the person-role fit role was one of their priorities despite the fact that over a third of line managers thought this was vital for the success of the business. Laurence Collins says “Whilst the focus for HR continues to be on reducing the time it takes for recruitment paperwork to be passed around the organisation, rather than on ensuring the recruitment process is delivering the right talent at the right time in the right roles in order to achieve business objectives, HR will continue to be seen as a cost rather than a value add function.”

This focus on efficiency rather than effectiveness may go some way to explain why over two thirds of the business directors surveyed were dissatisfied with the organisation’s recruitment policies.

Ignorance is bliss
Perhaps more alarming is the lack of awareness HR are appear to have about this level of disgruntlement from the business. Time and time again HR rated themselves as providing a better service than the business leaders felt they were providing.

Laurence Collins: “One of the key findings from this survey is that many HR departments are targeting areas for strategic growth which the rest of the business doesn’t value. To compound the issue, the business does not even see the HR function as effective when they are wrongly focussing on these areas deemed to be of relatively low importance. Obtaining a level of awareness and acceptance about the gulf between themselves and the rest of the business is the first step HR need to take in closing this gap.”