Developing business thinking in HR

Blinking HR and business thinking means an organisation in which HR is not in the ivory tower trying to serve the needs of the business, but hand in hand with the business, in interaction and continuous dialogue with the business to deliver solutions, products and services that affect people and the organisation - emphasised Barbara Schmidt, certified agile HR expert, organisational development consultant, coach and training manager of KÜRT Academy. She added: just as there is no isolated HR policy, there is no isolated business policy. At the organisational level, the HR professional works in cross-functional project teams with business areas.

How to improve the HR professional's approach to business?

According to Erika Bagdiné Fodor, managing director of ExperiZest Consulting and Development Ltd, there are many opportunities for companies to use specific methods to develop business mindsets in HR, whether we are talking about internal or external programmes. Examples of the former include senior management guidance or leading by example, or strategic policies of ownership, but also internal training, personal development, feedback, in the form of individual or even group meetings and workshops.

Other external options include objective but company-specific training, strategy workshops or even personal mentoring, the use of experienced professionals to help answer dilemmas and questions in executive solitude.

The growth and success of companies depend on the engagement and success of their employees, but this is largely determined by the company culture, the quality of senior and middle managers, talent management, and the human vision and strategy, said Business Consultant, Interim HR Manager and HR Mentor, Founder and Owner of HRLead, Martin Gyöngyvér. As he said, those at the ownership, investment and decision-making levels have the least strategic and practical experience with human capital.

Human resources is in fact a strategic business area, as the primary requirement for shared thinking is the articulation of a common purpose. This includes ensuring business success and competitiveness, increasing revenue and profitability, increasing market share and value, enhancing customer and employee satisfaction, and working towards sustainability.

At the end of the day, the greatest measure of collective thinking is growth in business performance.

Martin Pearl

Martin Gyöngyvér says HR leaders have a key role to play in understanding:

- What are the company's challenges and expected business outcomes (opportunities, problems, risks)

- Which four key business performance drivers are falling short of expectations (effectiveness-efficiency, quality, customers, innovation)?

- Which workforce capability improvements are needed to meet business expectations (e.g., change resilience, employee engagement, employee performance, employee experience)?

- What human capital process is linked to the development of selected workforce capabilities (e.g. recruitment, knowledge management, talent management, wages and fringe benefits)?

Essential elements in development

Barbara Schmidt said that developing the business mindset of HR differs from organisation to organisation and depends on a number of factors. It is difficult to give a general recipe with fixed ingredients, but development programmes with this aim typically include the following elements (or some of them):

- growth mindset

- agility

- design thinking

- "fail fast - learn fast" approach

- T-type competence set

Creation and development of the business mindset of human resource professionals is a shared responsibility of individuals and business leaders, says Martin. As he pointed out, an HR professional needs to have knowledge in many areas, such as economics, politics, technology (e.g. digitalisation, artificial intelligence), the world of numbers, sustainability. As Marc Effron said, until HR professionals learn to love business - production, sales, innovation, profit creation - HR cannot function as an accepted business area. The role of business leaders is to develop collaboration and to constantly seek and create common entry points. Involvement, knowledge and information sharing, the opportunity to learn about business areas, inviting and appearing at leadership meetings, shared responsibility, two-way consistent communication and support for leadership training are all elements that positively enrich the new behavioural chain

[page Practical examples: hr and business thinking]

Following on from the above thoughts, Ádám Mézes, people