HR professionals should banish their use of the term ‘the business’, said Simon Nash, HR director at Carey Olsen, in an interview with Clare Bettelley, associate editor of Employee Benefits.
He said: “It is used in the context of ’HR needs to influence ‘the business’ to make a change’.
“That’s completely alien, because as soon as you say that you say, ’I am outside of the business and I need to influence the directors, partners and managers’, whereas HR is the business.”
This is a big perception issue for HR, Nash explained.
“If we take it back historically, 20 years ago, a lot of HR people felt they had no influence in the business, and now they are looking to build influence upon the business. But that’s the wrong way around.
“What I think we should be doing is becoming so immersed in the relevant numbers and metrics that run the business that we are an integral part of a business decision, whether or not it is on the traditional HR agenda.”
