By Steve Steckler

Leading the human resources function has never been more crucial and challenging.  Global competitiveness, quick cycles of change, the economic reset and an uneven and lethargic recovery has impacted the effectiveness of leaders, the engagement of employees and the performance of businesses across industries and throughout the world.

So why are so many of us in the field of human resources still asking for the opportunity to contribute, to be valued and to have our expertise both requested and acted upon?  Are the leaders of the finance, accounting or IT functions still wondering about their purpose, role and identity as key contributors during these times?

We know our history and humble beginning as the personnel administrators, keepers of records, processors of plans and designers of programs and services.  The maintainers and guardians of what happens during key events of the employee lifecycle.  Many of us believed that if we only excelled at process and became efficient, we would earn the chance to be more strategic.  Metrics became very important so we either developed our own or borrowed from other functions.  These measures helped us become operationally excellent at the various transactions that were ours to manage including hiring, training, compensating and eventually engaging.

However, the struggle for strategic impact continued.  We complained about leaders “just not getting it”.  As if the value of our field should have been apparent.  Often it wasn’t!  Even one of the most brilliant and successful business leaders of the late 20^th century once told his HR folks that all he wanted from HR were three things: “hire, fire and keep the company out of court”.

There have been many failures and false starts; often human resources organizations have failed to gain credibility and partnership; while other HR departments have lost it due to their inability to strategically and operationally contribute to the achievement of business and organizational strategy and performance.  And still other HR professionals seem to be relegated to playing at the tactical level of everyday policy and procedure.  At the same time, some of us have wondered whether we are business partners or employee advocates, as if our calling can be only a one end or the other of that continuum.

While many still seem locked into what seems the HR function’s never-ending search for relevance, impact and in fact, an identity, more and more businesses and organizations understand, in fact, are demanding higher impact and value from HR. The importance of human capital management and its link to high levels of employee engagement and customer satisfaction requires internal HR leaders and their organizations to forever move from the tactical and operational to becoming more strategic and business focused.

It’s not a simple ten step program to make this transition.  It requires a strategic mindset, an approach to human resources that is derived from, aligned to and integrated with the business.  Educating leaders who may not know what to expect or have low expectations form HR is also part of successfully transforming HR.  The ability to present and influence with a strong, evidence based business case is also critical.

The first step is to limit or eliminate any insecurities about our identity and consider our history as prologue not epilogue.  Next, it’s to view HR as an integrated force, rather than a separate group of siloed programs and activities.  Becoming an expert at how the business makes and loses money, delights or disappoints customers, deals with suppliers and is positioned against the competition and all of the resulting talent and organizational implications, challenges and opportunities.  That’s the starting point.  After all of that, if you find that there is still the demand for only the tactical status quo, it’s time to move on if you can.

Steve Steckler is a principal and senior consultant with InTalent Consulting.  He has held senior HR leadership positions at Microsoft, Marriott International, WPP, TRW, Ciba-Geigy and Citibank. Steve has recently joined The Sauder School of Business’s Executive Certificate in HR Leadership program has an adjunct faculty member and will be teaching in the Spring of 2013.  He has a monthly blog on the Conference Board’s Human Capital Exchange.