Filling the HR pipeline: look internally for the HR executives of tomorrow and start developing them for the top spot—today

HR Magazine, Sept, 2004 by Robert Rodriguez

Isaac Dixon, vice president of human resources at the 120-employee Telco Community Credit Union in Portland, Ore., says the size of his firm prevents him from creating a formalized career development program. "I am interested in providing my current three-person HR staff with as much opportunity as possible to build cross-functional skills and thinking whenever we can," Dixon says. "I have them work on project teams outside their areas of expertise to build confidence, knowledge and internal networks beyond the HR function." (For more information on organizationwide succession plans, see the November 2003 HR Magazine cover story "Who's Next?")

Along with leveraging job assignments strategically across the HR function and in other business units, organizations have created special development programs for high-potential individuals in HR.

GE has a two-year human resource leadership program designed to prepare new HR employees to be business partners. The program consists of three eight-month assignments--two of them in HR--aimed at developing broad business skills through hands-on experience. In the third assignment, which is cross-functional, the HR professional may work in finance or in a Six Sigma role. The program also includes formal classroom training in HR leadership and business skills. (For more information, see "GE's Talent Pipeline Process," above.)

Tribune also has a formal leadership program called the Human Resource Development Program. The first of the program's two phases helps to provide exposure to various HR functions as well as to educate participants on the organization's broad range of businesses. In the second phase, participants focus on key business processes to improve their knowledge of the business. For example, most recently, program participants shadowed a reporter working at one of the company's broadcasting businesses. This allowed HR participants to see how a reporter develops a story and gave them a stronger understanding of the business.

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Similarly, new HR team members at General Mills participate in "Human Resource U"--an in-depth, perspective-building program designed to accelerate the understanding of both the company and the HR function.

Investing in the Future

Organizations with solid HR bench strength do not necessarily have smarter or more inherently talented workforces than other companies do. Their advantage stems from the investment they make in growing their own HR leaders.

"HR competencies do not arrive overnight," says Juliana McMeans, human resource manager at the Bingham McCutchen LLP law firm in Boston. "HR professionals need years of nurturing and mentoring to understand the intricacies of the numerous functions and how they are incorporated into the overall business strategies."

The vision of every HR executive, regardless of the size of the firm, should be to have an HR organization that has an abundance of credible business partners. HR executives today have an obligation to invest in and prepare a new generation of HR leaders who are more qualified, more insightful and more able to do the work of the future. Doing so ensures that the pipeline of future HR leaders is full.