HR's Evolving Image

Executives may view HR only as the place for processing payroll, benefits, and performance reviews, but the HR role has gone through many changes over the past few decades. “Twenty-five years ago, 100 percent of companies did their own payroll,” says Chuck Loeper, a senior consultant with the Stanton Group, an employee benefits, insurance, and compensation consulting firm in Minneapolis. “Now it’s hard to find a company that does their own internal payroll. What’s left then is an HR department that is recognized as being more strategic in their outlook.” Loeper believes the pattern will continue as more and more companies choose to outsource administrative tasks.

New software has also moved human resources from a cost center to a strategic partner in some companies. “I think it really started changing in the early ’90s because we got systems and processes to support the tactical work,” says Jody Larimore, human resources manager for the Great Lakes region of Wells Fargo, a financial services company with offices in Minneapolis. “Before that, [we were] inundated with paper. Technology has freed us. I didn’t come here to do payroll and benefits. I came here to be a change leader. I came here to be a credible activist for our culture. I came here as a talent developer.”

Jenny Masters-Wolfe, vice president of human resources at Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, questions why business leaders wouldn’t seek out HR expertise. “Why wouldn’t you ask HR to strategically be a part of creating and driving some of these initiatives?” she asks. In her organization, Masters-Wolfe headed up three workplace-climate assessments that, in part, monitor the success of the organization’s strategic plan. The assessments spurred the creation of a manager-evaluation process that involves peer, supervisor, and subordinate ratings, and a business coaching program that works with individuals, some of whom have been identified as future managers.

She believes some executives avoid human resources due to a lack of trust and respect or because they don’t want to give up control of workforce decisions. But HR professionals are ready and willing. “[Strategy] is the kind of work that keeps HR people up at night: Finding ways for the business to become more productive, efficient, and a more results-oriented place to work with employees that can’t wait to get there,” Masters-Wolfe says.

Jim Egan, former senior vice president of health and welfare services at Stanton Group, says some executives may hold a stereotype that HR employees aren’t “numbers people,” or aren’t trained to take the bottom line into account. That could explain some CEOs’ unwillingness to engage human resources. Indeed, an HR person in the financial-services industry who doesn’t speak financial industry language and can’t understand a balance sheet would have a difficult time enacting strategic initiatives for his company. If the CEO thinks in terms of revenue spreadsheets, human resources will need to communicate with her in these terms or face obstacles in moving strategic initiatives forward.