The Reluctant HR Champion?

Robert Ployhart

Dave Ulrich’s 1997 book, “Human Resource Champions,”1 helped capture the role of
HR professionals for the modern world. It shifted the view of HR as a compliance
function to HR as strategically valuable. In turn, many HR leaders blossomed from
administrators to strategic partners. Although there is still a long way to go, the HR
function and HR leaders have generally become more strategically valuable over the last
20 years. Yet questions remain. Is HR as strategic as it should be? Are HR professionals
as effective as they could be? And most importantly, what do HR professionals need to
know and do in order to be effective in today’s and tomorrow’s business world?

There has never been a time in history when HR has been more important to business.
Indeed, a number of social, economic, and political factors have converged to make
HR the most important function in many organizations today. As a result, HR is being
thrust into the spotlight—and this is the moment for HR to step forward and realize
its strategic destiny. Will HR professionals embrace the lead role with courage and
conviction? Or will they remain within the shadowy margins, clinging to a past that is
comfortable and reassuring? Will they be reluctant champions of the HR profession?

For HR professionals to achieve their potential, they need to redefine their role and
understand how they fit within this brave new world. The trends shaping the future

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require fundamental shifts in both the way HR professionals view themselves

and the competencies they must master in order to add value. In this new world,
HR professionals are no longer compliance officers or strategic advisors. Instead,
they coordinate and align talent, data, and strategy in a profitable manner while
balancing the interests of relevant stakeholders.

Trends shaping the future of HR

Several macro trends are already in play that are shaping the future of business. What
makes the present situation so unique is the number of distinct trends that are quickly
converging. While these trends are interrelated, each has its own implications:

• Globalization – The “Great Recession” made it painfully clear that no firm is an

island. Economic problems (or opportunities) that afflict other parts of the world
are not isolated. With greater connectivity comes greater complexity and greater
risk. The U.S. military calls this a VUCA world, for volatile, uncertain, complex,
and ambiguous. How can HR help organizations survive and even thrive in a
VUCA world?
• Demographics – Baby Boomers will sooner or later have to retire, although the
manner in which they will retire is unclear. Some Baby Boomers may continue
working on a part-time basis, while others may venture into freelance consulting.
Firms will struggle with the large numbers of people exiting the workforce and with
the loss of the knowledge they will take with them. At the same time, workforces
in developing countries are growing rapidly—but most of these workers lack the
requisite skills. In both developed and developing countries, newer workers are
also much more diverse (by gender, ethnicity, etc.) than Baby Boomers. How can
HR manage this diversity?
• Mobile technology – There is more technology in a smartphone than in the
computers used in the Apollo 11 moon landing. We have moved from the
“static internet” (desktop devices) to the “mobile internet” (smartphones) to the
“Internet of Things” (devices such as parking meters, street signs, and household
appliances that are connected to the internet). Technology flattens hierarchies,
provides more access to information to more people, and enhances transparency.
Technology also divides the world into those that have the technology and those
that do not. As we become more connected, it also becomes easier for fewer
people to cause greater damage (think hacking but on a grander scale). How
should HR balance the opportunities and threats that technology creates?

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• Data and information – IBM CEO Ginni Rometty has said that data will be the
most important “natural” resource in the near future. People and things generate
massive amounts of data. This data contains information that is useful for making
powerful predictions and decisions. However, the same information can be used
to ruin people and organizations. Employees and potential employees create
millions of data points every day. Consequently, “big data” is fundamentally an
HR issue. So how can this data be used for good and not evil?
• Competition – The days of “sustainable” competitive advantage are over for most
firms. Today, one can only hope for a series of short-term competitive advantages.
Industry boundaries are disappearing and time horizons are shortening. With
fewer external resources, firms are turning inward to search for efficiencies. How
can HR help firms make do with less and grow with shrinking resources?

Sitting at the intersection of all these trends is HR. The HR function continually
touches every part of the organization and also spans the boundary between
internal and external stakeholders. The HR leader has a difficult job, with success
not defined in terms of winning but in terms of maintaining balance. It is a zero-
sum game—and it’s going to be like that for the foreseeable future. The old HR will
not be successful in this environment, and HR professionals who are reluctant to
make the mental transformation to think of their roles and their function differently
will fade away. HR could own the future of business—but it will take a new kind of
HR leader to do it.

The new HR leader

A useful analogy of the new HR leader is that of a conductor of a large orchestra
(in various ways, this analogy has been used by Frank Barrett, Peter Drucker, Lee
Faller, and Karl Weick, among others). The conductor’s main job is to coordinate the
individual elements (musicians, instruments) so that the overall sound is pleasing.
The conductor is not an expert in most of the instruments, but is only generally
familiar with them. He or she must balance several tensions or paradoxes. One
tension is between the motivations and incentives of individually gifted musicians
versus the orchestra as a whole. A second tension is between musicians or sections
that are strong or vital to a piece versus those that are supporting. A third tension is
balancing the flow, timing, and tempo of individual sections to create a harmonious
temporal experience. Last but not least, the conductor must balance the needs of
patrons, musicians, and owners, and do so in a manner that is enjoyable to all.

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HR leaders need to be conductors of the organizational orchestra. In the past,

they brought content expertise to assist business lines (e.g., knowledge of staffing
practices, understanding of compensation systems). This would be similar to the
conductor having deep knowledge of each instrument, where each instrument is
like an HR practice. However, the actual playing of the instrument was left to the
musician (i.e., the line manager).

In contrast, new HR leaders add value by coordinating the orchestra rather than
having deep expertise with each of the instruments. The new HR leader needs to
be comfortable balancing the various tensions (individual versus firm, star versus
supporting players, timing, and flow) without having the benefit of knowing how to
play any particular instrument. This HR leader lets the musicians do what they do
best—maximize the performance of their instruments—while the conductor does
what he or she does best—maximize the coordination of the musicians in a manner
that creates value through intangible resources.

What makes this new HR identity so scary is that the HR leader moves away from what
has historically made him/her unique—HR practices—and adopts a role that relies
more on coordinating three key elements: talent, data, and strategy. HR leaders own
the coordination of these elements. Indeed, they are the leaders that most understand
how to create, implement, and develop competitive advantage in the modern economy.

Elements of the new HR

There are three key elements underlying the new HR. The first is talent. Understanding
how to accumulate, develop, maintain, and divest of talent, both individually and
collectively, remains a critical element in the new HR. Although this was true of the
old HR, the new HR must address these issues within a very different environment.
For example, globalization changes where talent is located, and technology changes
how talent is sourced. The management of individual talent also differs significantly
from talent as a collection of interdependent individuals.

The second element is data. Big data is largely HR data, and HR leaders will need
to be comfortable working with data analysts who may have little knowledge
or appreciation of the “human” nature of their numbers. Predictive modeling
makes it possible to conduct all kinds of decision analytics. These analytics will
fall under Title VII regulations and related legislative guidelines. HR leaders

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will need to know how to work with data in a legally appropriate, ethical, and
professional manner.

The third element is strategy. To argue that HR managers need to think strategically
is certainly not new. What is new is that a firm’s differentiation strategy is
increasingly based on people and how they are organized. That is, employees don’t
just help implement the strategy—they are the strategy. In turn, HR managers
need to embrace new methods for demonstrating the strategic value of talent.2

Orchestrating alignment
It is the HR leader’s job to understand how to leverage and orchestrate these three
key elements to generate profitability and value for stakeholders. Some might say,
“We already do this.” For example, doesn’t workforce planning consist of people,
data, and strategy? My answer is no. Workforce planning is important but not the
right strategic solution because it is based on predictions about a future that is
probably not going to exist. In contrast, orchestrating people, data, and strategy
enables real-time planning that is flexible and agile.

Orchestrating people, data, and strategy requires an ability to coordinate

alignment across different levels of the organizational hierarchy. Most prior
HR training has focused on teaching the skills needed to create talent pipelines
(or supply chains) that may exist at the individual or firm level. Yet in the new
economy, it is not enough to create alignment horizontally. In the search for
doing more with less, HR leaders must learn to orchestrate alignment vertically
as well. Vertical alignment occurs by ensuring alignment between individuals,
teams, strategic business units, and the entire firm. Simply getting good people
doesn’t ensure better firm performance if those people can’t work together or are
underutilized. The orchestration of talent across levels creates synergies where
the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, but it requires the use of data to
understand the required talent configurations that most strongly contribute to
strategy execution. 3

The future should be an exciting time for HR, but will HR leaders cling to the
comfort of practices and compliance—or will they embrace the spotlight by
orchestrating talent, data, and strategy? Will HR leaders be the champions of a
VUCA world—even if reluctantly?

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About Robert Ployhart

Robert Ployhart is the Bank of America Professor of Business Administration at the

University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business. An internationally
recognized expert in human resources, his expertise relates to the acquisition,
development, and maintenance of human capital. His more specific areas of focus
are recruitment, personnel selection, staffing-related legal issues, employee and
leadership development, and organizational strategy. Ployhart has published more
than 100 scientific articles and chapters, two books, and holds two copyrights. He
has received many scholarly and teaching awards and is a Fellow of the American
Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the
Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Ployhart has worked with
numerous private and public organizations to create selection and psychological
assessments (e.g., tests, assessment and development centers, interviews,
simulations, situational judgment tests), develop culture and climate surveys,
develop leadership programs and performance management processes, create
training programs, and provide statistical/legal support. He has also consulted and
advised organizations on human resource policy and strategy. He received his PhD
in industrial/organizational psychology from Michigan State University.

1
Dave Ulrich, “Human Resource Champions” (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997).
2
I.S. Fulmer and R.E. Ployhart, “Our Most Important Asset: A Multidisciplinary/Multilevel Review of
Human Capital Valuation for Research and Practice,” Journal of Management, 40, 2014, pages 161–192.
3
R.E. Ployhart, A.J. Nyberg, G. Reilly, and M.A. Maltarich, “Human Capital Is Dead: Long Live Human
Capital Resources!” Journal of Management, 40, 2014, pages 371–398.

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