My former student at one of the Graduate Business Schools, asked me what are the HR skills required to advancing effective in his career as HR General Manager (currently known as Chief People Officer) in a multinational corporation? I replied, “Whether you are new to HR or advancing your career, the profession has moved far beyond its administrative roots. To lead effectively, today's HR professional needs skills beyond employment or industrial relations law and empathy - chief among them, commercial drive.” He responded “But what does ‘commercial driven’ HR actually mean?”
“The answer,” I revealed, “is understanding how an organization makes money, what its strategic goals are and how people strategies can directly contribute to achieving them. Commercial drive means viewing people strategy through a business lens. Every HR initiative from recruiting to development should ultimately improve performance and profitability. HR is now a critical driver of business success. Today's professionals are expected to lead people function and contribute directly to profitability through workforce training programs leading to the highest productivity results.”
Based on my five decades of corporate experiences, I believed to deploy commercial drive, practitioners cannot operate in a silo. We must be deeper integrated into the fabric of the business. This means understanding the market that the organization operates in, its competitors and its unique value proposition. To be successful as a senior who represents the HR function in a company, it is vital that we are truly part of the core leadership team. Not just a bolt on and necessary function. As such, we are crucial to ensuring that there is a high-performance and engage staff cohort made up of people with relevant skills and attitudes to execute the company's strategy and purpose. After all, an amazing vision and strategy is nothing without engaged people in executing the mission.
One of the biggest barriers to demonstrating commercial drive is language. HR initiatives are often framed around wellbeing, engagement or culture. While vital, these need to be translated into terms that resonate with leadership, such as ROI, productivity, efficiency, and risk mitigation. HR initiatives need to be framed in terms of their contribution to the measurable business outcomes.
Zulkifly Baharom (hajizul50@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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