Wisdoms from the HR Guru - 3 things that I learn from Dave Ulrich

Dave Ulrich is world's no. 1 guru in Human Resource. He always talks about HR Transformation and how HR can play even a more important role in order to help organization to thrive. I have the opportunity to spend a day listening to Dave Ulrich a year ago, but today I want to share some of his wisdom from this short video clip that just been uploaded by The Leaderonomics Show.

1. HR is not about HR. HR is about helping the business win

The problem with most HR is we look at HR as another process in the organization. HR hires candidate, arrange interviews, trains them, pay their salary and take care of their welfare. But HR should play a better role than that. We should look at HR as a major component to help the business succeed. I believe this is a very good mindset, because if we think this way, it will totally change the way we do things. If we hire, we want to hire someone to meet the overall goals of the organization, not just putting another headcount in the department.

In order to do that, HR directors need to involve in the business side of the organization. To really understand where the business is heading and to provide resources to support that bigger purpose of the organization, to provide the right training to increase the competency of the people to achieve the objectives, as well as to put on compensation plans that align with overall organizational direction.

Example given, like in Google, the direction in order for Google to be successful is they have to innovate by creating something new. The HR director, Laszlo Bock tells their people that they are allowed to use 20% of their time to try new creative things, something that they have never done before. This is to create an environment to support the bigger purpose of the organization which is to innovate. On the other hand, Amazon has a different strategy, they want their people to be more discipline.