feature | HR'S EXPANDING ENTERPRISE ROLE
PUT VANILLA ON ICE & HOLD THE FLAKE
For a business of any size or sector, a siloed HR
department with a reputation for being ‘vanilla’ must be assessed against how closely it’s linked to business growth and driving tangible value to the bottom line. However, the ‘vanilla’ HR department is largely a thing of the past as the core objectives of attracting, developing and retaining talent are functions that lie at the heart of growing business.
The hackneyed debate of how HR can “add value” has moved on over the hill and far away. It’s not just about being “people, people”, it’s about having strong emotional intelligence because, despite the drive towards an automated world, few organisations would deny that their people are still very much their business. The inescapable fact is, now more than ever before, if frontline teams aren’t engaged and don’t feel well supported, they simply won’t deliver the services needed. That goes for the HR team, which is just like every other team, in needing to be high performing and accountable for delivering its objectives as part of the enterprise gain. This is no better exemplified than with our organisation, the PPF, which is a body that protects millions of people who belong to defined benefit pension schemes in the UK. As a member of the Executive Committee, I lead a team of 29 people within the PPF’s HR, Organisational Development and Communications Directorate. Talent management, senior leadership development, change projects and diversity and inclusion initiatives have come to define my role over the last nine years. People goals are at the heart of the HR function, you would expect me to say that, but without that mantra, the organisation’s journey to deliver on its financial goal of becoming self-sufficient by 2030, could never be achieved.
ARTICLE BY KATHERINE EASTER, CHIEF PEOPLE OFFICER - PENSION PROTECTION FUND (PPF)
A key area for the PPF has been to insource some business functions. Noticeably, when we began insourcing customer service and asset management functions, the influence and visibility of the HR team grew, as it set to deliver on the agenda of creating new cultures across multiple teams, to achieve the strategy and vision. Recruiting people into the newly- formed roles and developing the benefits and remuneration to attract and retain these people, has been fundamental to the success of what has turned out to be a major business transformation, which has added true and tangible value to the bottom line. The HR team needs to be an integrated partner in the business - driving change and supporting leaders to build the right teams with the right skills, capable of delivering in the changing climate of business. They must be able to think commercially, understand the business objectives and combine the skills of both specialists and generalists to work well to deliver. The days of HR teams, out of touch with business goals, performance and metrics are long gone.
24 | thehrdirector | DECEMBER 2019
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