Business leaders value innovation but have questions over whether HR is visionary enough for the task, even though HR leaders also agree on importance of innovating
Both human resources heads and business leaders are placing increasing value on innovation in business, but the business chiefs are questioning whether HR is visionary enough to make it happen.
According to a study released today from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), a third of both HR leaders (35 per cent) and business leaders in general (32 per cent) rank innovation as one of their current top priorities.
However, while nearly three-quarters (72 per cent) of HR leaders believe that their current people strategy is capable of delivering their business's future goals, just a quarter (26 per cent) of business leaders feel the same way.
"At a strategic level, HR and non-HR leaders are evidently aligned on goals, but our survey highlights clear areas of opportunity for better collaboration and communication between HR and other functions," said Dr Jill Miller, research adviser at the CIPD. "With people being at the heart of how businesses operate, HR has a significant role to play in wider organisational innovation. This requires business-wide systemic thinking and action to affect change but the good news is that we can see from the report that the appetite from non-HR business leaders for HR to drive this change is there."
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In light of what the report found, the CIPD has called on the HR profession to look into ways to innovate itself so that the function can prove its relevance to the modern-day boardroom.
Both groups surveyed ranked cost management as their main priority for their business, with 63 per cent of HR leaders and 61 per cent of business leaders citing this.