Integrate HR with biz goals: Experts

BANGALORE: The panel discussion on 'HR in IT, Managing people-Driving Business', organized as part of the ongoing Bangalore IT.in 2005, focused on the changing scenarios in HR management and the business dimensions involved with it.

Speaking on the emerging role of an HR professional, Pallab Bandopadhyay, chief people officer, Scandent solutions, said, “HR management needs to have the strategic ability to think through and implement competitive strategies with focus on people. They need to integrate and align HR system and processes with changing new business opportunities.”

Prashant Sankaran, COO, Indecomm Global Service, said that the primary objectives of a HR management are competence in HR, business acumen and governance. Competence in HR can be achieved if organizations integrated HR system with their overall functions to deliver business value.

HR professionals need to possess a keen business acumen, an understanding of their business, market, competition and global trends. To administer corporate governance, enterprises must adopt best practices, he said.

Concurring with the view, Navneet Singh, CEO of Heidrick & Struggles, said, “The HR management needs to focus on integrating HR with business goals. The team must contribute to enhancing organizational efficiency and maintain credibility with the stakeholders.”

To achieve this, he said that the team needs to find and nurture talent to meet the business goal. It helps to combine business background with global experience in realigning with organizational expectations, he said.

However, he avers that there are no universal best practices that organizations can adopt. The concept of 'Best' in HR is subjective, transitory and non-specific. Each firm has a distinctive HR system that represents its core competitiveness. These are not a set of actions but a cohesive approach to organizational management.