Strategic Value | What has HR Done to Add Value?

Driving strategic value means helping the organisation perform in the short and long term. Alison Grace (National Express) summed up as follows: 'HR adds value when it delivers stuff that makes a positive difference to the business, which means addressing those areas that need to be addressed in each business and not by adopting a "this is good for you/everyone is doing it" approach. It is about being relevant, about identifying a change agenda and then helping the business deliver this agenda'. This means being clear about what really matters to the organisation. This was echoed by Martin Moore (Royal Mail) who also emphasised that strategic value was delivered when HR was at the heart of change. For Ian Muir (ESAB), delivering strategic value means building an engaged workforce so that a performance edge is created through people. Roger Cooper focused on HR's strategic role in working issues proactively, in creating healthy organisations and in identifying and managing risk.

An excellent example of strategic value-add can be seen in National Express Group when Alison Grace was their Group Leadership Development Director and which is presented in the case study below.

Case Study — National Express

When Alison Grace became Group Leadership Development Director, National Express Group had no previous experience of HR contributing at a group level. The business was devolved and operated as largely stand alone business units. As an organisation of 30,000 people operating in the UK, North America and Spain, there was a strategic need to develop future leaders. In rolling out a framework called DNA — Driving National Express Achievement — it could be argued that the HR team put in place the kinds of people processes you would expect to see in any large organisation: a leadership capability framework; a talent management process; new reward arrangements; common leadership development programmes, etc. However, DNA was more than this. As Alison Grace explains: 'DNA was a vehicle for the business to ask and answer some critical questions it needed to ask, for example, "how far should we be integrated as a group of businesses?" and "what drives high performance in our businesses?" Although led from HR, this work created a series of powerful conversations and debates at senior levels in the business. It meant HR challenged prevailing business thinking and helped shape the strategic direction of the organisation. Through this challenge, the business took the opportunity to put greater professionalism into core people processes such as performance management, reward and talent. It also gave people the opportunity to set expectations concerning the type of leadership the business needed. This work was the precursor that enabled discussion and decisions to be taken about a National Express Group brand and gave people an opportunity to get excited about being part of National Express Group rather than just their business unit'.

So in this example, the development of a leadership strategy provided a catalyst in helping the business engage in a conversation about the kind of organisation it needed to become to deliver high performance.