Should Recruiting Report to HR?

Check out Dave Lefkow's article over on ERE today. As always, it is well reasoned and argued.

I agree with Dave's analysis but not his conclusion. Most parts of HR can provide strategic and comparative advantage if done correctly. If compensation was viewed with an eye towards innovation we could get out of the stupid market-based analysis and into rewarding value creation, which would clearly be a core competitive driver if aligned well with business purpose and mission. And it's clear that organizational development could be used to improve competitiveness.

Other than retirement, employee relations and some legal functions, I think most of HR could be every bit as much a competitive advantage as finding and hiring the best people.

But Dave is right to surmise that the vision of truly strategic HR is farther away in most companies than the vision of strategic recruiting. If, like Valero, you have brought in a business person to run your recruiting function then it makes no sense to report to HR unless there is a like-minded business person running that function too. "Business people" can never report into corporate functions and survive long. Bureaucracy always kills innovation, and you can’t be a business person in today’s world unless you are constantly seeking competitive advantage and directly linking your efforts to why people buy your company’s product (and don’t buy your competitor’s).

Comments

[Sourcing Guru]

no!

recruiting should report to ceo
=ideal.
sourcing should report to cmo
=ideal.

play nice ftw.

~jer
PS. NEW SITE: www.o0.typepad.com

[Dave Lefkow]

Thanks Jeff.

I completely agree with you when you say that "Most parts of HR can provide strategic and comparative advantage if done correctly." But I think you'd agree with me when I say that in most cases HR is set up to be an administrative rather than a strategic function. And even when they are strategic, recruiting and talent management tend to get further buried than they deserve to be in my opinion.

These disciplines should be the lifeblood of companies in a knowledge economy where great talent drives profit. The best hope to change the game and raise the stakes is to secede. Let the comp people get more strategic and show what they're worth (so to speak) - amen! But recruiting shouldn't be waiting for that to happen to get the respect it deserves.

I'll be posting some more thoughts on this topic and some very interesting reader responses on my blog in the next week.