8 Ways HR Can Positively Impact the Bottom Line

As an HR professional, it’s your job to hire the best candidates.

Candidates who’ll invest themselves in your organization.
Candidates who’ll go above and beyond to get the job done.
Candidates who will ensure customer satisfaction and, ultimately, increase profitability.

While that’s the ultimate goal of any HR department, the trick is turning this goal into something actionable. That’s exactly what LaFern Batie, CEO of The Batie Group, explained during the 2014 Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) annual conference. Here are Batie’s eight areas where HR can have a positive impact on their organization’s bottom line:

1. Know your business
How does your company make a profit? If you can’t articulate this, meet with someone who can explain it to you. You can only positively impact the bottom line if you know how your company truly operates.

2. Engage in competitive learning
You’re responsible for developing training for your organization. However, you need to truthfully answer this question: Does it add value to the organization in a way that translates into profitability?

“Remember, you’re talking to people in finance who want to know how [your training] is going to impact the bottom line,” Batie said. “Keeping this in mind helps you engage in conversations with your executives and gets them to see the value in what you’re doing.”

3. Hire and engage the right talent
Here’s another question that needs a truthful answer. To figure it out, it will be important to find key people in your organization who can help you understand how newly hired employees are affecting the company as they become tenured professionals.
What’s the revenue impact of your hiring process and how is employee engagement impacting your organization’s profitability?

4. Good leaders and profitability go hand-in-hand
Leaders drive employee performance. When you look at great leaders and their attributes, it’s easy to draw the line between them and increased profits.

Your leaders should:

• Have a clear vision
• Follow a results-focused strategy
• Lead transformation
• Be a model for integrity and character
• Communicate effectively
• Inspire high performance
• Build relationships
• Develop a strong professional expertise

5. Innovate
We live in an age of unbelievable technological advances. If your HR department isn’t taking advantage of paperless HR technology and using it in innovative ways, it’s falling behind the competition.

“Manually processing information via paper is extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive for HR staff, prohibiting it from focusing on the job—improving HR’s level of service to employees,” says Katie Alberti, “You have to carve out time to think about how you can do things differently,” Batie said. “You must understand that risk is a part of the journey. It’s hard to innovate when you’re afraid to take any risks.”

6. Construct a positive experience
Your brand is a promise of an experience. What experiences are you creating for your employees and customers? How can you help shape the experience customers have with your organization?
A positive experience yields higher profitability.

7. Align your HR strategy with your business strategy
Constantly ask yourself how your departmental goals align with those of your business. If supporting compliance initiatives is what’s most important to your business this year, figure out how you can support it in your department as well.

8. Execute with excellence
Think about your favorite product or service. Why do you go back for that experience? Determine how you can make that same connection with customers and your brand. Ask yourself: What can be refined in my people, processes and systems to increase our level excellence?

So, how do you drive profitability in your organization? How are you linking your HR successes with a return on investment? And, most importantly, how are you communicating it to your executives?
Figuring out the answers to these questions will position your HR department for lasting success.