Why does HR matter?

Ask ten people what HR does and you'll likely hear: 

Hire and fire people.

Administer pay and benefits.

Ensure compliance.

Ask an HR person, and they’ll likely add:

Develop talent.

Support managers.

Build culture programs.

While none of those answers are necessarily wrong, none of them describe why HR exists or the opportunity in front of us in today’s modern post-pandemic / post-AI workplace.

HR’s role isn’t to manage people practices. We exist to help design an organization where people, and therefore the business, can consistently perform at their best. What we do isn’t counter to organizational performance, or even in spite of it, but it works in tandem.

Headlines like this keep screaming at us:

• Why We Hate HR
• We Don’t Need HR
• This CEO Eliminated HR

And really, if our function is defined primarily by administration, I can’t argue with these declarations. In fact, the more AI is leaned into, the more pressure we have to automate, outsource, and eliminate roles.

But if instead our function is to build stronger organizations through people, our value only increases, not lessens.

In fact, the key outcomes an organization seeks are rarely (if ever?) achieved without its people: Growth. Innovation. Profitability. Adaptability.

There are thousands of organizational decisions that lead to these results, most of which are related to people: Who gets hired. How leaders lead. How work is organized. How performance is defined. How people learn. How decisions are made. How culture is reinforced.

Thought through this lens, these aren’t “HR issues,” they're organizational issues.

This is why I believe HR should never be evaluated by how efficiently it administers programs but by how intentionally we help the organization improve its ability to perform in the marketplace.

For decades, organizations have debated whether HR deserves a seat at the executive table. 

But from my standpoint this is the wrong question. Instead, it's if, how, and why HR is contributing to the conversations that determine how the organization performs.

The most influential HR teams don't become influential because they're more responsive. Or nice. Or helpful.

They become influential because they challenge leaders with questions like:

• What capabilities will our strategy require?
• Where is performance and engagement consistently strongest?
• Which leadership behaviors are accelerating or slowing execution?
• Where are our organizational systems working against one another?
• What should we change to improve organizational performance?

When viewed this way, HR stops measuring success by the activities delivered and instead by the impact those activities create, the practices that are shaped, the capabilities that are enabled and accelerated so people perform at their best. 

Instead of: "Here's everything HR accomplished this quarter."

It’s: "Here's how HR helped move the business forward."

In addition to the misconception of HR as administrator, one of the most common misconceptions about HR comes from within HR itself: that we can evolve OUT of operations and INTO strategy.

But organizations need both from us. 

Operational HR is about:

• Delivering reliable, repeatable people processes 
• Reducing friction in how work gets done 
• Ensuring compliance without slowing the organization

Strategic HR is about:

• Shaping the workforce with a tie to enterprise priorities
• Connecting talent choices to performance outcomes 
• Designing how work, roles, and teams actually operate

Strategic HR without Operational HR means lots of great ideas but no process to put them into place. Operational HR without Strategic HR means lots of process and data but without an overarching plan or direction for where it's going.

Both matter. And both need to be shaped in relationship to how they drive organizational performance.

To shift HR from activity to impact, HR leaders need to see their function differently: Not as a collection of people-related specialties or services, but as one of the organization’s primary drivers of organizational performance.

Whether a small HR team of one or two or five, or a large function of 30 or 50 or over 100, start by clarifying the outcomes the organization is trying to achieve and the capabilities needed to achieve them. Then, consider how HR is organized and operated, how it creates value, and where friction lives.

Sometimes that leads to redesigning the HR operating model. Sometimes it means refining roles or adding new ones. Sometimes it means a new purpose or goals. Sometimes it’s about building the confidence, acumen, and business perspective that allows HR professionals to contribute differently.

One of the most rewarding parts of my work is coming alongside HR leaders and executive teams rethink or reframe the purpose and function of the HR function.

Whether I am redesigning an HR operating model, helping a Chief People Officer/head of HR think through key organizational decisions, coaching an HR director in how to level up to a CPO, or upskilling an HR team, or helping non-HR members of the executive team recognize the business decisions that are people decisions, my goal is always to make HR more valuable.

Because the future of our profession won't be defined by how efficiently we manage transactions or by what we administer, but by how effectively we enable organizations build the capability to perform, by designing the conditions where people can be and do at their best.