This is the cover of the July/August edition of the HBR. I feel like I’ve been banging on about this for MONTHS and am feeling more than a little vindicated.

Having said that, I don’t believe we need to totally blow up HR. That would be throwing the baby out with the bath water. We don’t need an HR Revolution, we need an HR Evolution.

There are three great articles in the features section, including a case study of an organisation that is getting it right. Whilst I agree for the most part with what has been written in these articles, I still didn’t feel like there was a lot of new information. Seems like everyone wants HR to change, but no-one knows how to do it.

In one of the articles, the writer talked about having HR being part of a leadership triumvirate including the CEO, CFO and CHRO. This isn’t new. Jack Welsh, former CEO of GE always had this model, and even felt that HR was considered more important than Finance (sat at the right hand of God…so to speak).

I think that’s part of the issue. Some leaders are able to use and leverage their CHRO and their HR team and get great results. So on the one hand, we need to be helping our CEO’s get the most from HR. On the other, HR needs to show up differently so that the CEO sees the value and has a desire to partner more effectively.

There are 5 things leaders in organisations need to navigate and all of them are areas where HR can partner to help achieve results:

If we overlay how HR can help, we see a way for HR to show up differently, support leadership and make a difference.

Donna McGeorge is passionate about making work work. She has spent the past 5 years working with organisations across South East Asia to help evolve their HR functions into something that the organisation wants, needs and values. #makingworkwork #evolvingHR