Interview with HR Guru-Dave Ulrich

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This week we were priviledged to get an exclusive interview with Professor Dave Ulrich. Dave has been voted HR's most influential thinker for three years in a row, 2007,2008,2009 by the respected UK-based magazine, HRMagazine. He was also named the #1 management educator and guru by the highly respected magazine,Businessweek.Dave shared with Brett insights on the current and emerging issues in HR. We provide a summary of some of the issues discussed in the interview.

Credible activist

Dave indicated that in their most recent research on HR competences, they found out that an effective HR professional is a credible activist- respected and has a point of view about business results. He says it is not enough for HR to be liked.

HR with an attitude

This is an interesting concept. He explained that HR with an attitude means the HR professional has a very strong point of view about business results. Dave gave an example of a company called Flextronics where HR meets with customers to understand their expectations. This is an emerging work of HR. Flextronics uses the insights from customers to build HR practices that meet customer expectations-hire,train, pay and communicate around customer expectations. The idea is that HR begins with the business. But the business begins with the customer. Modern HR needs to have a line of sight that runs to external customers inorder to impact business results. Such an HR will gain respect in business. Customers and employees should focus on the same issues according to Dave.

This is what we call telescopic thinking hence our column name: The Human Capital Telescope. A telescope sees objects several light years away. Pro-active HR acts like a telescope.

HR should market itself as a professional services firm says Ulrich

Professor Ulrich drew examples from legal firms, advertising agencies and accounting/audit firms. The underlying idea is that a professional services firm turns knowledge into client productivity. Dave says, likewise HR should turn its unique expertise into client (line manager productivity). Dave says HR has information about people, performance and work-these centres of expertise should be turned into useful insights to help line managers improve productivity.

Looking forward to hosting you on the next blog, next week. Spread the word so that we can share our thoughts on a regular basis.

For the full interview go to http//:theindependent.co.zw. You can use search words once you get onto the Zimbabwe Independent website.