Restructuring: HR as part of the company management – what are the key pros and cons?

There is a good reason for the trend for HR increasingly to have its own voice and be directly represented in top company management: Nowadays, employees are a critical “strategic success factor” for achieving company goals in virtually all industries and sectors. More and more CEOs are recognising this and giving HR more weight and more influence with a place on the board. However, this strategic change in the top management is not exactly voluntary, but done under pressure. Symptoms such as high turnover, employee dissatisfaction, shortage of skilled workers, high absenteeism, mistrust within the workforce, etc. – in other words, HR topics – have a negative impact on the company’s profits, so something has to happen. Bringing HR into the boardroom – if it is not there already – is certainly a good move. Creating the new position on the board is not the end of the story, however. The new colleague must also want, be able, and be allowed to help shape the company, and must be taken seriously. This change also brings with it more responsibility for HR side, because the new influence wants to be well used. Furthermore, the HR management requires appropriate skills to be able to assert itself and discuss in the new board: Strategic thinking, business understanding and the overall entrepreneurial thinking beyond the HR area. Furthermore, the new colleagues need to raise awareness for HR issues in the top management and, in addition to “hard topics” such as HR processes, KPIs and costs, also to make progress with “soft issues” such as cultural change, modern working-time models and flexible workplace design. The role of the HR worker is changing, moving away from being an operationally constrained personnel worker to being a sparring partner on an equal footing with fellow board members and shapers o...