Last Tuesday, Lance Haun at Your HR Guy asked, “Is human resources fatally flawed?”

In the post, Lance outlined some of the reasons why the tide is turning against HR:

1. Most of HR’s value could be outsourced.
2. Unclear goals and ROI.
3. No input on business direction.

Lance’s initial conclusion was that human resources would go the way of the dinosaur and dodo.

But wait! Much like a phoenix rises from the ashes (I have to lay-off the Harry Potter), Lance thinks HR will be reborn – leaner and stronger (and dare I say sexier?) than before.

Lance’s article got me thinking: What does strategic human resources do?

I don’t mean how we’re functionally organized, but how we actually add value to the business. What makes HR worth keeping around?

The HR Phoenix

I think the future of HR should be focused around three critical areas:

1. Make sure all the workplace stuff helps people to do amazing things that drive the organization.

Step one: Understand how the organization makes money.

Step two: Make sure every single policy and program helps people do things that drive the organization.

That means thinking about motivation and the law of unintended consequences. It also means learning how to get out of the way and let your people do great stuff.

2. Help managers be great at managing people.

A lot of managers are awesome at the functional aspects of their job but not the management stuff. We should be relentlessly focused on helping managers become rockstars.

Great managers help their people become great.

HR should help managers become awesome at managing. Teach them how to mediate (or better yet, avoid) employee relations issues. Teach them how to communicate effectively. Show them how to identify the strategic development needs of their organization and give them the power to book training around those needs.

Finally – this is important – measure them against their management skills.

3. Develop a system to attract and select great people into the organization.

Maybe sourcing is done by the manger, or maybe it’s done by a separate department. Hell, maybe it’s outsourced.

But HR should help managers put together a system to attract and select great people. That means two things:

• Developing and managing and employer brand.
• Developing a selection system to identify great talent.

Make sourcing easier. Build a great culture, and then market your employer brand around that culture. Get rockstars to come to you.

Make selection easier. Use the years of research data on effective recruiting to develop a selection system that goes beyond a few interviews.

I’m sure I’m going to get some angry comments and emails from recruiters for this comment, but effective recruiting isn’t a “gut thing.” You don’t “just know” when you’ve found the right candidate. If you did, there wouldn’t be a greater than 50-percent error rate in the selection process. (Don’t get me wrong, the ability to woo and court a candidate requires a particular skill set. I’m talking specifically about selection.)

That’s what my HR phoenix looks like. What about yours? (Don’t forget to check out Lance’s article and see how my list compares to his.)