Thursday, December 6, 2012

HR Doesn't Deserve a Seat at the Table - The Sad Investor Metrics Story

If during the last part of November you felt a shake, a rumble or a sense of sadness in the HR world - then you would have been right. What is more than likely, is that you are a well informed HR reader, and you had the no idea that the HR profession took a seismic step backwards - and for some reason - it is not getting a lot of press. But the reality is - well, in reality - we were given a seat at the table and we walked away from it.

What Happened:
Over the last 18 months there has been a great group of folks working on the investor metrics standard for SHRM and ANSI, and at the last minute - the HR Policy Association got into the fray (along with bringing some of their friends) and basically stopped the entire initiative. There was no desire to provide input, alternative approaches, and instead - it was this needs to be stopped.

Why is this a big deal? We are ducking responsibility, and positive accountability!
If we as HR professionals know we are helping the health of our companies' bottom lines by lower turnover, better engagement, and better health - and we truly believe it - then it should affect the bottom lines. Well if it affects the bottom lines in a material way - should we report it out to investors to attract more investment dollars?

Series of Blog Articles:
I am going to write a number of detailed articles that will help you understand why this event really showed some of our profession's self image issues. So the following articles will cover:
1. What really happened? What were the investor metrics anyhow?
2. Why investors are already looking for these numbers anyway!
3. Why HR should be proud to provide the metrics
4. Lastly, why and how, investor metrics will help all of us!

But the bottom line is that a great group of HR professionals were starting the process to identify the key ways HR contributes to company health, and work on ways to share that information with the investor community. How is this a bad thing? Wouldn't it be awesome if you weren't the only one in the company that wanted to reduce turnover and keep employee engagement high? 

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