Today was the first actual day of the SHRM 2009 conference in New Orleans; the Big Easy. Unfortunately, business and HR are not living in times that are “Big Easy”. You can see it immediately in the obviously lower attendance. When I first got here, I got into a cab to go for dinner and when the cab driver asked if I was here for the SHRM conference and I said yes, he mentioned that the cabbies had been told to expect only about 7,000 attendees.
All of this is just more evidence that HR gets short shrift. Now is the time when businesses should be investing in their employees and yet . . . Don’t business leaders get it? Employees are the key. That is what Jack Welsh said yesterday in his opening remarks when he said that HR is the most important job in the company and they need to make sure that they are at the table with the main decision makers. HR needs to “communicate like hell” and help organizations build trust. He also spoke about the specific value of HR being to appraise and develop high performing employees.
I especially liked his comments on communicating. Here he spoke about something that I have written about in the past; transparency. Open communications are the key and that doens’t mean sugar coating things but rather openly discussing the good and bad of what is going on. Taking this a step further, by doing this, you can help the ‘C’ suite to see that not all of the best ideas come from their offices but many come from the employees on the floor who are dealing with the day-to-day issues that drive the company’s success.
More to come. . .
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