New Knowledge, New Opportunities

The Human Resource function, with its overall view of the business, has a great opportunity to capitalize upon and synthesize the new knowledge we have gained about organizational behavior.

For example, we know that:

• Employee involvement is vital to the success of many companies and business programs today. People who do the work know the work best. They should participate in decision making that affects their jobs, workplace and livelihood.
• People will acquire skills by choice, if given the opportunity. Well-designed jobs and pay systems encourage skill acquisition and increase job satisfaction.
• Teams of people can be self-directing with equal or greater effectiveness than supervisor-led groups. When people are self-managing, the challenges and the rewards of achievement increase the meaning of the work they do.

The HR Department must also reexamine its traditional role. For instance, roles like Employment, Compensation and Training are performed in new ways to free the HR department to focus on other value-adding activities. This can be achieved through outsourcing, internal consulting, automation, the assumption of HR functions by line management, leaderless teams, team-based decision making, self-guided computer training, the Internet, reverse interviewing, as well as other strategies.

The result? The new proactive HR function can act more like a strategic partner.

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