Need urged to make HR part of business

KARACHI: Human resource departments of several companies in developing economies, including Pakistan operate in isolation, experts said on Thursday.
“HR (department) should be fully integrated (with other departments),” said Leon Menezes, Professor of Practice at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), speaking at a HR conference.
“The language of (today’s) business is finance and HR does not talk about business,” he added. Integration makes the department more responsible and less bureaucratic and will enable it to play a pro-active role in the development of the business and human resource.
The role of HR department is not limited to just hiring and firing, while staying away from rest of the business. The department should have a complete knowledge about its business; it should know people, customers, and how the business makes money. The HR department should have a direct voice in the board of directors.
The HR department should be provided with full resources, including finances to create an enabling environment in which any member of the human resource comes forward and plays role in helping the business grow.
A big company integrates HR department with the business much like other departments, such as finance and information technology, Menezes said.
Leadership at all the levels of the organisations should encourage the department to design policies, which could integrate human resource with the grand business agenda of the organisation.
The HR department should create an environment in which departmental heads should be made responsible of various things, including evaluating performance of their team members, making them learn new things, creating space for reading, sharing articles with them, counseling with employees when anyone of them feel the need, coaching and mentoring.
“Without HR competency, without leadership commitment, and without employee’s own interest, nothing is going to happen successfully,” Menezes said.
Zahid Mubarik, president of Society for Human Resource Management Forum (SHRM) Pakistan said the cost of human resource in the developed organisations surged up to 70 percent.
Citing the economic survey of 2012, Mubarik said the cost of human resources (in a business) is between 12 and 58 percent. “In Pakistan, banking sector bears the highest cost of human resource at around 55 percent,” he added. “Organisations bother not much about expenses when human resources deliver.”
He said HR departments in various organisations in Pakistan do still learn from trial and errors. “SHRM has launched HR competency in Pakistan, which tells organisations how to develop business and how to develop professionals,” he added.
Mubarik said HR department should not only have knowledge, but also apply it to grow the business.
Saad Amanullah Khan, chief executive officer at Alamut Consulting said leadership is all about community building, helping others, human rights and eliminating poverty.
Khan said one may find millions of definitions of leadership over the internet. He, however, found Michael Kouly’s definition near to his heart. “The ultimate purpose of human being is to survive and grow,” he quoted Kouly.
Khan said everyone should ask five questions to judge himself: Are you stuck or moving; Is your family happy; Is your department successful; Is your organisation growing; and Is your country prospering?