This year’s HR Tech show in Las Vegas was inspiring! It was great to see everyone in person and engage with practitioners, vendors, analysts, and others excited about what is happening in the world of HR technology. Stacey Harris, our Chief Research Officer and Managing Partner set off a few fireworks on the main stage during her keynote address when she presented the results of our Annual HR Systems Survey!

During her address, Stacey issued a challenge to the entire Human Resources Community. HR is far behind our colleagues in Finance, Supply Chain, and IT in being perceived as contributing strategic value to the organizations we serve. We are calling BS! Despite HR’s time in the spotlight during the pandemic of 2020/2021, when we made Herculean efforts to protect and preserve our most precious organizational assets – our people, we made no progress toward being viewed as strategic partners to the business. That is just WRONG, and we must do something about it.

Enter the Sapient Insights’ 55 by 25 challenge! Over the next eighteen months, the Sapient Insights team will be laser-focused on leading the charge to improve HR’s position as a strategic partner to the C-suite, operational leaders, and the HR community. Although the challenge in this message is to HR professionals on the front-line delivering services and programs, this initiative requires the entire community’s focus and participation to be successful. We are counting on you to help each other! In future posts, we will outline actions HR technologists, HR Technology vendor partners, and consulting colleagues can take to support the 55 by 25 journey and improve HR’s position in the strategy game.

In Stacey’s message at HR Tech 2022, she identified critical actions HR can take to move the needle toward being a strategic partner. You may be surprised by what she shared.

• Implement an adaptable change management program
• Utilize workforce planning that includes business-focused data and position management
• Implement time management systems that ALWAYS meet business needs
• Implement transformational processes in the areas of:

o Absence Management
o Leave Management
o Skills Management

On the surface, these actions may not strike you as adding strategic value. It almost seems too simple to believe. They do not include words like employee experience or HR strategy, but when we dive a bit deeper, the power and impact of these actions becomes more apparent. Efforts like these can drive employee experience and HR strategy and operationalize the buzzwords! The activities also focus on the business rather than the internal HR function.

When we engage in activities like workforce planning that solve the problem of having a ready and skilled workforce, ensuring our organization meets or exceeds goals (like generating profit), our operations partners take notice! We’ve just become part of the solution instead of being a compliance cop who just says “NO.”

From a process perspective, absence and leave management are activities that impact employees and managers in profound ways. For the employee, absence and leave are usually emotionally charged events. It is not something they do regularly, so they may not be familiar with what to do, where to go, who to talk to, and most importantly, what to expect from the experience. For managers, absence and leave are stressful because it’s not something they see as core to their responsibilities. Beyond providing accurate information about the process, managers are also concerned about keeping the lights on while that valuable employee is away. Imagine how much impact HR could have on the employee experience if the process for these high-stress activities were simple, straightforward, and easily accessible. And if HR could take out a bit of time to support the manager who is struggling to keep operations moving while the employee is away, our stock could skyrocket.

As we examined the 2022 survey data, it was interesting that there was a high correlation between being a strategic HR function and having a time management system that always met business needs. That’s actually GREAT news for HR! Most organizations, large and small, utilize time management systems. Let’s talk to our business partners about what is working, what is not and what THEY need from a time management perspective to improve outcomes. When we deliver what the business needs, we have a much better chance of being seen as a partner versus an impediment.

The area with the highest correlation to being a strategic HR function is having an adaptable change management program. This is a huge opportunity for HR to take charge and shine with the C-suite. Businesses are experiencing change at constantly increasing speeds. The success of that change depends heavily on how readily the people in the organization adopt change. HR is uniquely positioned to lead change efforts. We know (or should know) our people better than anyone else in the company. And with all the data available in our HRIS, survey tools, and payroll systems, we can quickly assess the stakeholders for any change effort. From there, we can use the deep relationships we have with individuals and groups within the organization to identify champions and saboteurs. And we can utilize the communications and training mechanisms resident in HR to engage the right stakeholders at the right time to help them adopt the change. If HR has the courage to lean into a few high-visibility, high-impact change efforts, the payoff is not just being at the table; it is becoming a critical partner in the initiatives that drive the organization’s success.

We know these methods work. We have seen it in action across the last 25 years of advising clients and working in the trenches with them as they deliver business-focused results and gain credibility with their peers. We are committed to being part of the solution for HR achieving strategic partner status in AT LEAST 55% of organizations by 2025. Please join us on this journey. We would love to hear your feedback and ideas. What’s working for your company? How can we, the entire HR community, help each other? In our next installment, we will share ideas for how HR Technology Vendors can support the journey. Stay tuned!