This has been an informative and educational first week of class. Its been a while since my last HR class in undergrad so I've been taking extra time to refresh my knowledge on the subject. This weeks discussion boards consisted of the following questions:

The need for HR to be a strategic partner to sustain competitive advantage is widely espoused, but appears to be less often enacted. IT, Finance and even Marketing are all facing similar challenges. What is it about these functions that lend themselves to this criticism? Is it deserved, or simply a result of the fact that they are not part of “operations” end of the business?

This was an interesting discussion amongst the group but the main sentiment was that HR is not a function that deserved to be overlooked. A lot of the responses touched upon how HR plays a critical role in an organization. Its a shame that its overlooked at times because it truly plays a big role in just how successful a company is. Just thinking about the one aspect of HR which is hiring and training employees, if not done correctly this could lead to not properly trained employees or employees who are not a fit for culture. It costs the company a good amount of money to hire and train employees and therefore can be financially impactful to lose employees or let employees go who are not the right fit. If a company has a thorough hiring process and strategy in place it can prove to be a cost savings for the company. This also includes a good retention strategy to keep these employees and their knowledge inside the company.

Assume the role of a business user being supported by HR, to answer the following: How is it advantageous to understand HR’s internal structure, focus and key processes? Provide examples from within your own organization to support your answer.

This was another interesting discussion and I enjoyed reading the myriad of responses my from classmates. I saw the a lot of classmates reported that understanding the internal structure was important for employee support and I think that is a key point. Often times many employees interaction with HR is limited to support reasons whether its for benefits consulting, training, etc. Therefore, its through these interactions that employees may gain perspective and understanding of HR and its role. However, in order to get to that point, the employees must understand how HR is structured so that they know who to go to for support. Personally, it was through my recent interaction with HR that I was able to gain a clearer picture of both the internal structure as well as how HR contributes to the organization as a whole.

I thought that the discussions themselves bring a lot to the table because not only do you varying opinions but you get to hear how other organizations are structured/how they handle the HR function.

In addition, I found 'HR from the Outside In' to be a very informative read for the first few weeks. The notion of 'Outside In' was a term I haven't heard in this context before. This particular quote from the book stuck out because it explains they are getting at with 'outside in', "Outside-in HR is based on the premise that the business of HR is the business." However, as I am reading through the text I hope to get a better understanding of this 'outside-in' HR concept.