What is the bottom line mission of a good HR unit or a savvy company’s people-team? How does it really add real tangible value to organizational activities, breaking away from the traditional slot of being payroll masters, doling out salary cheques and receiving unending flak for every trivial human failure.

If you think of the profession of Human Resources like that of Marketing or Finance ( it’s usual competitors) , you can begin to see that HR as a function is in the unique position of being part of people-power that fuels a business. Any business, actually!

HR professionals who are able to look at the company business strategy and identify those internal processes and practices that need to be newly created or amended to support the business are poised to make a leapfrog. That’s the only way forward. Change management starts with the HR professionals themselves raising their performance bars. Quite simply, because the entire success story gets scripted by how HR gets the right team going. Not just by recruiting right talent, but getting them to stay . And perform.

A word of caution, though. Value additions does not stop at identification of the issues for strategic alignment, it also blends into an overview of the dynamics of the organization , it’s vision and mission statements. Give me one company’s latter high-sounding lofty vision or goals that does not have the people element in it. Or are some companies presumptuous enough to believe that their business success can be achieved without quality human intervention? The ability to identify the communication and human interventions that need to take place to support business activity with a
vibrant and engaged workforce, is today a required competence of HR practitioners. Employee engagement is no longer just a passing buzzword or a fashionable management quote.

For a long time now, CEOs, business leaders and management thinkers have been repeatedly saying that people are an organization’s most valuable asset et al. It is time for HR pros to now seize the opportunity and confidently establish their credentials.

In an age of quick-fire M&A, where an MTN can suddenly switch overnight from a Reliance merger deal to a Bharati Airtel one , one can imagine the turbulence on employee minds in all three organizations. . Or take the Yahoo-Microsoft-Google impasse, which can have implications for management at all levels. Even the Ranbaxy acquisition by Daichi is fraught with serious HR challenges. The actual demand of time and space for organizational realization that people really are the cornerstone responsible for business success , and that a good CEO and even a great leadership team cannot do it alone is crucial for new management thinking.

We need to understand that when change radically happens it takes twice as long and is thrice as painful for those trying to live through it than if it can be supported and introduced properly and with sensitivity within the organization. Though all things around us change, most changes are really gradual and we take them on little by little. Usually organizational change needs to be swift to be successful. If we are not organizationally change savvy and supported by HR’s advocacy and agent role, it’s ability to communicate and get buy-in from employees, we may lose a good many of our talented and key people along the way . And that can have not- so-pleasant consequences for the profit crunchers.

What does this really mean for HR? It means that HR must be more focused on the long term and strategic needs of the business rather than of the paper processes that support them. To start with, HR pros need to look in the mirror. And see a robust, confident , cheery, professional and business-like reflection. That will be a good start.

Sanjay Jha Jha is Executive Director of Walchand Talent First ( Dale Carnegie Training and SHRM Training and Development Partner)