Business Strategy

"The single most important strategic pillar of any great enterprise is people,” best-selling author Jim Collins said in his Tuesday keynote session at the SHRM 2012 Annual Conference.

After spending nine years studying why some companies thrive in uncertainty or even chaos, while others do not, for his latest book Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck—Why Some Thrive Despite Them All (HarperBusiness, 2011), Collins concluded that “it all begins with people.”

The notion of business as a combination of sport and war was attributed to Emile Herzog (1885-1967), a French author who used the pen name, Andre Maurois. I’m going to admit at the outset that I was a strong proponent of Herzog’s concept for most of my career. However, now that I look back from the CEO afterlife, I realize that this view need not be pervasive.

At State Street Corp., a multinational financial services provider, we view flexible work arrangements as a strategic tool for achieving business objectives and employee engagement.

Relax. You don’t have to have all the answers. You just need to know the right questions to ask. And, sometimes, that’s where the real challenge lies.

When it comes to working with senior business leaders on strategic workforce planning, what matters most is the conversation, not the HR professional’s ability to quote data, reports and metrics, said experts on a recent Conference Board webinar.

Back in the fall, We Know Next published my blog, Why HR and the CEO should be joined at the Hip. According to SHRM, the blog struck a chord within the HR community. Conventional wisdom suggests the CEO’s most valued C-suite confidant should be the CFO. I’m not arguing that. During my CEO days, I was fortunate to work with two outstanding financial executives. I’m simply pointing out that a CEO has more than one hip, and with culture finally getting its credit as a key success factor, the time has come for HR to occupy a seat at the C-Suite table.

Quite often, including here at We Know Next, when the term “flexibility” is used with respect to the workplace, it’s often in the discussion of worklife balance initiatives that serve as benefits to the employer and employee.  In this arena, we think about telework, co-working, ROWE, and other employer-supported program to give employees more control over how, when and where they work.  Having a flexible workplace is now viewed as something that smart companies do in order to support their culture, increase employee engagement and loyalty, and ultimately drive business success.