HR Departments — Drivers of Change

HR depart­ments nat­u­ral­ly need to stay on top of their com­pa­nies’ every­day oper­a­tions. That includes address­ing the skilled work­er short­age, recruit­ing and retain­ing out­stand­ing tal­ent, opti­miz­ing process­es, and inte­grat­ing inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies. At the same time, they are fac­ing a grow­ing need to man­age spe­cif­ic sit­u­a­tions and respond in flex­i­ble ways to unan­tic­i­pat­ed events — mean­ing exter­nal influ­ences from the world at large as well as inter­nal com­pa­ny developments.

“It’s no longer enough for HR depart­ments to man­age the sta­tus quo,” says Ninjo Lenz, Part­ner at Porsche Con­sult­ing: “HR must now become the dri­ving force behind the suc­cess of the busi­ness and busi­ness ser­vice areas.” That means acquir­ing the right tal­ent­ed peo­ple as an attrac­tive employ­er. In the process, Lenz notes, they are mak­ing ever greater use of inno­v­a­tive con­cepts such as cor­po­rate influ­encers, indi­vid­u­al­ized appli­cant out­reach with the help of AI, and alum­ni rec­om­men­da­tion programs.

The impor­tance of agile and adap­tive HR depart­ments is espe­cial­ly evi­dent in dif­fi­cult times when com­pa­nies are not per­form­ing as well as they would like. As Lenz explains, “HR should be able to respond flex­i­bly to changes and take effec­tive steps to adapt work mod­els, restruc­ture remote work, and apply orga­ni­za­tion­al tools to deal with crises.” HR man­agers should keep a sharp eye on employ­ee life cycles, which cover the entire spec­trum of com­pa­ny-employ­ee rela­tions, and become inven­tive design­ers of work­ing conditions.

“In light of the major changes affect­ing all parts of com­pa­nies, HR depart­ments need new ways of think­ing and an entire­ly new approach. Not only in their func­tions but also in their skills,” says Lenz. In his expert opin­ion, “Many com­pa­nies don’t seem ready for this, or are hav­ing trou­ble doing so in prac­tice.” Lenz’s col­league, Isabel Neitzel, a psy­chol­o­gist and busi­ness coach at Porsche Con­sult­ing, explains how the restruc­tur­ing process can work. “The HR depart­ment first has to ini­ti­ate its own trans­for­ma­tion to be fit for the future. That requires a deep under­stand­ing of cur­rent and future chal­lenges, plus a desire to devel­op fur­ther at all times.” Cre­at­ing a team of top employ­ees with a strong busi­ness sense and broad range of exper­tise is of cru­cial impor­tance here, she adds. It puts employ­ees in a posi­tion to respond flex­i­bly to new chal­lenges and devel­op inno­v­a­tive solutions.

A dynam­ic per­son­nel depart­ment with a ver­sa­tile and tal­ent­ed team can respond rapid­ly and effec­tive­ly to unfore­seen events such as a pan­dem­ic. At the same time, a “well-estab­lished ecosys­tem is impor­tant in order to inte­grate new ideas and per­spec­tives.” This might be achieved by work­ing with exter­nal experts, for exam­ple, or by par­tic­i­pat­ing in indus­try or other open-space events. Devel­op­ing clear mod­els for func­tions and roles is anoth­er cru­cial task if HR is to com­mand the right abil­i­ties and exper­tise for han­dling future demands. One suit­able instru­ment is the fol­low­ing: “By cre­at­ing a range of career paths for HR per­son­nel from dif­fer­ent dis­ci­plines, a depart­ment can safe­guard its suc­cess­ful tra­jec­to­ry on into the future.”

In Porsche Consulting’s expe­ri­ence, HR man­agers are a long way from occu­py­ing board or exec­u­tive posi­tions at all com­pa­nies. His­tor­i­cal­ly, HR depart­ments have been con­sid­ered mere employ­ee admin­is­tra­tive bod­ies and have there­fore often remained in the back­ground. “It’s obvi­ous, how­ev­er, that HR heads should be just as present as chief finan­cial offi­cers,” says Lenz. He gives an exam­ple: “HR should be sup­port­ing strate­gic invest­ment deci­sions about new sites with work­force and job mar­ket data. That’s anoth­er rea­son why HR heads need to be vis­i­ble at the high­est com­pa­ny lev­els. If nec­es­sary, they have to go out and get this vis­i­bil­i­ty themselves.”

Isabel Neitzel devel­ops con­cepts and train­ing for for­ward-look­ing HR depart­ments. They’re about a “new self-under­stand­ing,” says the psy­chol­o­gist and busi­ness coach. “Away from the admin­is­tra­tive role and toward that of a pow­er­ful com­po­nent and cat­a­lyst. HR depart­ments need even more bold­ness. And above all, self-con­fi­dent designers.”