“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”
– Lewis Carroll
One of the many fun things that comes from working in Human Resources is trying to pull together the pieces of an organizational puzzle. It helps tremendously when we can find patterns in the form of ideas or concepts that are applicable and transferable from one area of the Human Resources function to another.
For example, in the video clip below, “Culture Shock with Shawn Galloway”, Mr. Galloway introduces the concept of strategic planning, specifically, in relation to Health and Safety assessments.
Click Here to View the Clip.
While the focus of this clip is on Health and Safety, Mr. Galloway’s comments regarding the concept of excellence as the big-picture goal relate directly to the strategic human resources planning concept of setting an ideal vision for organizational success.
No matter how big or small an organization may be, if there is an over-riding and established standard of excellence, everything that the organization does must be measured and evaluated against that standard.
What excellence in action looks like, and how it is achieved, may vary between departments or organizational business lines, but it should in each case be defined clearly. When a department or business line starts to waver or lose effectiveness in its activities, the question can be asked, ‘how does this action tie into the strategic standard of excellence?’. If the answer is that it does not, or that there is no available evidence of activities that support the standard, then it is time to get those actions back on the path of achieving excellence. If the standard does not require adjustments, then the actions needed to achieve that standard, must be changed accordingly.
Discussion Questions:
- What does excellence look like for you in your current actions as a student?
- What does excellence mean for you, as you think about yourself in the role of Human Resources Professional?
- What motivates you to achieve a standard of excellence and how do you know once you have achieved that standard? What types of evidence or indicators do you look for?