Is HR from Venus and finance from Mars? It surely feels that way to many of us in these departments. CFO Magazine even put out an article last year entitled Memo to CFOs: Don't Trust HR.
The article starts with this premise "Most companies today spend too little effort on attracting and retaining top strategic talent and too much on satisfying the rest of the employee base, asserted Rutgers University's Richard Beatty, who spoke at a general session during the CFO Rising conference in Orlando. In fact, he claimed that typical human resources activities have no relevance to an organization's success. "HR people try to perpetuate the idea that job satisfaction is critical," Beatty said. "But there is no evidence that engaging employees impacts financial returns."
I try not to make this blog a venue for all my personal opinions, but I think there's a lot of room for argument with Beatty's view. I'd rather lean towards some great views from Gautam Ghosh: "Ultimately HR and Finance people do similar roles. They reach out and acquire resources (people and money) from the market. They deploy it. They develop it and invest in it. Ultimately they can learn a lot from each other, while being cognizant of the differences in their approach and the resources they deal with and not become clones of each other. "
There's lot of room for discussion here and I'd like to invite you to a webcast and discussion next week Integrating Talent Management & Finance. We have Dr Ted Prince of Perth Leadership joining us on February 24-- we'll be leaving lots of time for open discussion and spirited debate. Come and share an opinion.
