EXCLUSIVE: HR challenged by paradoxes, Dave Ulrich tells HR Leaders Club
David Woods, 04 February 2009
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Dave Ulrich, professor of business administration at the University of Michigan, told top HR professionals: "In the current climate, HR is faced with a series of paradoxes and may, as a result, become confused as to whether to do nothing or everything; or to take a short-term view or a long-term view."
Speaking to HR directors, academics and industry leaders at The HR Leaders Club sponsored by Buck Consultants at the Soho Hotel in London last night, Ulrich added: "HR could be making the mistake of focusing on the talent of individuals in organisations instead of looking at the talent of organisations as a whole. And HR departments often see employees as their customers rather than actual customers of their business."
Ulrich (pictured), famed for his business partner model and voted number one human resources thinker in HR's Most Influential 2008, advised the assembled HR directors to consider the investors in their organisation as they are investing their money in people as much as profit.
Commenting on Ulrich's views and the lively debate that followed, Anna Marie Detert, head of human capital and communications services at Buck Consultants, told HR: "HR will have to manage these series of paradoxes - HR leaders need to have a clear strategy as well as a clear operating function to bring them to the centre of business dialogue. It is not what they should do, but what they must do."
For more information on the HR Leaders Club, see the March edition of HR magazine.
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