Why HR do Performance Consulting  


What is Performance Consulting?
Performance Consulting is a process in which a client and consultant partner to accomplish the strategic outcome of optimizing workplace performance in support of business goals.

— Jim and Dana Robinson

Why HR and training functions should do Performance Consulting?

•  A study of 740 organizations found that the firms with the greatest concentration of HR practices
   that reinforce and support performance had the highest market value per employee (Becker and
   Huselid 1998).

•  David Ulrich and Wayne Brockbank found that “companies that routinely invest in aligning HR
   strategy with their business strategy and develop HR professionals to know their business and
   make strategic contributions to management decisions can show up to 250 percent impact on
   business performance compared with companies whose HR function is more tactical and
   transactional” (RBL Group, n.d.).

•  In research conducted by the Corporate Leadership Council (2006, 6), fewer than one in six
   executives rated HR in the top three most strategic functions, and only one in four executives
   rated performance of their HR function as “excellent” or “good.”

•  In Accenture’s research, reported in 2006, executives’ level of satisfaction with both the
   HR and Training functions in their organization had declined since 2004. In the recent study,
   only 11 percent indicated they were very satisfied with HR and 10 percent as very satisfied
   with their Training function (Balaguer, Cheese, and Marchetti 2006, 21).

• Despite the acknowledgment that working strategically is necessary, Mercer Human Resource
  Consulting reported that a survey of HR respondents in 1,100 companies indicated these
  individuals spend less than 20 percent of their time in strategic partnering activities (Klie 2006).

•  Although the investment in development of people continues to increase, the results in terms
   of skill transfer and enhanced performance have not made comparable strides. A research
   indicated between 80 and 90 percent of the investment in learning is lost as people do not
   apply what they have learned to the job (Robinson and Robinson 1995, ix).

 

There is strong evidence that internal consultants (HR and others) continue to focus more on the solutions they deliver than on the results those solutions are to generate. So why do performance consulting? Because it is a process that requires a strategic, results-focused approach. It is a process that does not merely implement solutions but achieves sustained results. It is a process that requires linking HR and Learning solutions directly to business requirements.Most importantly, it is a process that HR and training functions can build a new brand and being more strategically valuable to the orgazniation.