The Link Between HR and a High Performance Culture

The concept of creating cultures of innovation has become a focus and ongoing challenge for many executives and in turn for human resource leaders. HR’s role in fostering a company culture that embraces differences and creativity is a subject of debate among leading industry professionals. However, it is certainly clear that culture plays a vital role in an organization’s success. Therefore, HR professionals must increase their proficiency at impacting and fostering a high-performance organizational culture.

In order for HR leaders to have any impact on culture, they must first have a thorough understanding of what culture is. It is the collection of values, beliefs, symbols and norms that the organization follows and that defines what it is and how it does business each and every day. Culture basically defines the proper way to behave within an organization. Culture is the glue that binds an organization together.

HR professionals have many mechanisms at their disposal to assist them in creating, changing and sustaining a high-performance organizational culture. The biggest challenge facing many HR professionals is in deciding how to use these mechanisms and allocate resources appropriately.

Some of the mechanisms at HR’s disposal include but are not limited to:

• Reward and Recognition Programs—Reward and recognition programs are one of the most important mechanisms HR has at its disposal to motivate employees to act appropriately by recognizing and rewarding those employees who behave and conduct themselves properly.
• Performance Management Programs—Performance management programs can greatly impact corporate culture by clearly outlining what is expected from employees as well as provide a feedback tool by which to inform employees regarding proper behavior.
• Recruiting and Selection Initiatives—Selection and recruiting efforts can seriously impact an organization’s culture by determining the types of employees that are brought into the organization. HR professionals should look for more than skills and qualifications in candidates. HR should also determine whether or not a particular candidate will be a good fit with the organization’s existing culture. (But make sure that the “good fit” rationale does not result in discriminating against any applicants who may not be “just like” the selectors.)
• Organizational and Employee Development Programs—Investment in people and in appropriate HR programs to foster employee development and commitment requires a deliberation of the ways in which HR has typically undertaken such matters. For HR leaders this may represent a significant opportunity to prove value through involvement in major change initiatives.

For HR leaders to impact culture, they must work with company senior management to identify what the organization considers proper with regards to how employees behave and conduct themselves. To create and sustain a high-performance organizational culture, the decision needs to be made as to what the organizational culture should look like. What vision does the organization have for its future and how must the existing culture change to support that vision? Remember that simply meeting organizational goals may no longer be sufficient to create and sustain a high-performance culture.  In order for an organization to truly thrive, strategic thinking and planning must extend beyond merely meeting business goals and focus more intently on an organizations most valuable asset, its people.

Source: SHRM May 2009