Week 1... on to Week 2!

Week 1 is in the books. Four more weeks to go, and frankly, I'm not sure if I've made a connection with the new 'team' yet. Like last semester, the technology piece is shaping up to be a challenge for some, so I'm going to need to simplify and make sense out it for them. It's my feeling that if you're going to be an effective HR business partner, technology has to be your friend. It's inevitable, and we, in HR, need to embrace and understand it. 'Struggle with it, and you will be rewarded.'

Bill Kutik had a great guest on his radio show this week, and it was timely. John Boudreau of USC's Marshall School of Business talked about his research on HR's strategic role in organizations and how technology and metrics fit into how HR can provide strategic value by linking talent and business outcomes. This is what it's all about and what we hope to talk about in class this week. I got into HR because I felt like HR was perfectly positioned to add real value to the organization by hiring, developing, and staffing the right people for its business. The correlation between these activities and the company's success has been difficult to quantify. Technology, I hope, will be the lynchpin that makes HR role critical in the success of any company.