Articles
High Value, Low Investment: HR as New Business Accelerator
This business environment is neither for the weak, nor timid of heart. Today’s business leaders are under mounting pressure to find high impact, low cost solutions in order to sustain and develop their business. Resources are tighter than ever, innovation is increasingly critical in markets that are being re-defined by global competition (most particularly with new entrants from China and elsewhere), and there is greater demand by shareholders for sustained value. During 2008 and 2009, some organizations faced necessary reductions in staff which pared talent resources into the organizational muscle. As other profit drivers are being squeezed, business leaders are looking to their HR organizations to enhance the productivity of their people and their organizations to best effect. Yet, we are seeing many business leaders struggle to leverage their HR organizations for this 21st century economy. How can this be, after more than a decade of focus on the role and development of the Human Resources function as a business driver?
Diversity and Inclusion: Critical Success Factors for Transformational Success
The practice of diversity and inclusion has evolved significantly during the past two decades. For the most part, approaches, concepts and practices of the '90's are no longer effective in today's workplaces. Awareness was the focus; transformation and D&I competence is today's necessity. Our organizations are global, deal with a diversity of customers and suppliers, have multi-cultural strategic partners, and include multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-generational employees with diverse perspectives, needs, and challenges.
HR's Role as the Accelerator in Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives
The need for organizations to embrace diversity and inclusion is clear. The customer, workforce, and supplier demographics leave no doubt that organizations are increasingly challenged by significantly different workplace dynamics. Historically, responsibility for meeting the challenges of increasingly diverse workforces, customers and suppliers has been placed within the function of HR. But, this has left the specific role of HR, as it pertains to diversity and inclusion, clearly. murky.