HR’s Role in Supporting the Company Mission

September 7th, 2010 by Skywalk Group Categories: business, Company Training, Customer Service, Customer Service Training, Employee Development, Employee Retention, Human Resources Management, Job Analysis, Management Development, Recruiting, Skywalk Group, Staffing and Employment, Supervisory Training, Team Building Tags: company mission, development, HR strategy, staffing, training

An organization’s mission explains its existence to the marketplace and communicates what its customers, vendors, employees and community can expect from the organization.  From a strategic perspective, HR’s role is to ensure these collective groups truly experience and understand the organization’s mission.  HR serves this role in three broad but critical areas.

Setting Expectations

Within a mission statement are clues to the company values.  HR’s role is to establish, communicate and reinforce these values throughout the organization through the policies and practices that manage its human capital.  For example, if an organization’s mission is to provide superior customer service, how it staffs, trains, manages, develops and compensates its employees needs to reinforce this philosophy.

Bringing (and Keeping) the Right People on Board

Without the right people in the right roles, a company will struggle to do the very thing it set out to do.  When HR approaches staffing from a strategic perspective it ensures the mission can be met.  Strategic staffing includes identifying the roles most critical to accomplishing the mission, defining the skills employees must have to accomplish the defined objectives, and bringing on board the right talent to accomplish the mission. HR also plays a critical role in designing the total compensation strategy to attract and retain the right people.

Preparing for the Future

HR serves an important role in preparing the workforce to meet current and future challenges.   Often this translates into organizational development activities such as training and career development initiatives to address the human capital needs of today and prepare the workforce for the future.  It also includes performance management strategies that ensure the right work is being done and employees are informed on how their performance compares to company needs.

While HR may not sell, make, or deliver the product or service that makes the organization money, its role is no less “mission critical.”  An HR professional’s responsibility is to understand the mission and translate it into human capital management practices that align with it.