Executives cite HR as essential for company strategy

UK business leaders are increasingly seeing HR as crucial for the development and delivery of overall business strategy, according to research.

NGA Human Resources has surveyed over 100 CEOs, Managing Directors and COOs. They all worked at organisations with over 500 employees. The results reveal that HR is not only an administrative role in the minds of business leaders, but essential for successfully implementing the company business strategy.

83% of business leaders feel that HR departments clearly understand and contribute to the strategic direction of their business.

The research also revealed that HR plays a big part in attracting as well as retaining talent for the future. 76% of business leaders believe the employee proposition developed by their HR departments to bridge this gap is strong enough to attract the right talent.

Additionally, HR departments are the driving force behind internal training programmes that 75% of companies have put in place to give their staff the skills the business currently needs.

Ian Dowd is the Marketing Director at NGA Human Resources UK. He says: "HR has always been a strategic business function but, as our research has shown, business leaders are only now starting to realise what substantial contributions HR can actually make to their business more broadly.

“No other department has access to such a wide pool of company and employee information that can be used to inform important strategic business decisions. It is great to see that HR teams are finally starting to get the recognition they deserve."

But attracting talent is not good enough, companies must also ensure that they have a culture which nurtures long-term leadership.

Nick Greer is the Director of Studies - Online MSc Human Resource Management at the University of Liverpool. He recently spoke to HR Grapevine about creating a culture of long-term leadership and how companies can go about doing that. Read the full story here.