Excellence just keeps coming….

G’day from down under!

After participating in a memorable and fun SDSHRM LUVfest program on February 29^th, I hopped on a plane for a much needed holiday in Oz.  The flight and subsequent travel time within Australia have provided me with lots of time to reflect on Colleen Barrett’s wisdom.  Southwest’s focus on its culture, hiring folks with a warrior spirit, servant’s heart, and fun luving attitude coupled with its relentless pursuit of profitability have proven quite successful.  Southwest, over a 30 year period of time, has been the most successful publicly traded corporation, beating market returns by a factor of 63X and besting their industry average rate of return by a factor of 520X.  And yet, I can’t help but wonder why more organizations fail to focus on the fundamentals that Southwest gets right again and again in its 40 plus year history.

In the 90s, numerous CEOs tried to replicate what they thought was Jack Welch’s secret for success:  firing the bottom 10% of your organization’s performers.  This mis-application of the GE talent strategy was made more surprising by the fact that many of these same CEOs didn’t walk into their Chief Marketing Officer’s office and say “we need to replicate GE’s marketing strategy”, or into their Chief Operations Officer’s office and say “we need to implement GE’s manufacturing techniques.”  This week, GE announced a shift in its talent strategy.  After pursuing a strategy of generalists, and deciding its future differentiation will require a talent strategy shift to develop deep functional expertise.  All of this brings to mind the importance of the role of the human resources professional within organizations.

As a human resource practitioner, I love my job.  I get to do really interesting things each and every day.  I get to work with people I respect.  And, I am allowed to make a difference.  Each of these aspects are the result of my ability to engage with my organization’s business leaders and help them achieve business objectives through optimizing their talent; all in pursuit of workplace excellence.  All of this, of course, is in addition to making sure that the right talent is selected, deployed, and managed well, that healthcare premiums and claims are paid on time, that our recordkeeping is accurate and compliant, and that any investigations to address deviant workplace behavior happens timely and with the appropriate outcome for all.  You see, the fundamentals I learned as I was building my human resource competence (e.g., employee relations, administration, staffing, etc.), were my ticket for entry into leadership within an organization.  The invitation to remain in a role that enables me to contribute is due to a focus on optimizing organizational performance.   As we look to the future of our profession, we will need to focus on 21^st century HR practices, while maintaining the fundamentals honed throughout our profession’s 20^th century success. 

As President of the San Diego SHRM Board of Directors, it is a privilege to be able to bring programs, events, and experiences to our community that will enable our members to bring workplace excellence to their organization.  At the moment, I’m looking forward to wrapping up my holiday in Oz and returning to San Diego and participating in our March 27^th and 28^th workshops conducted by Root Learning.  The excellence just keeps on coming…

Cheers, mate!