HR Professionals: Brand Yourself as a Businessperson

For most companies, HR has evolved from "personnel" to strategic partner. In fact, according to a recent study, the number of HR execs reporting directly to the CEO is up to 67% (compared to 30% in 1977).

But businesses still fail to see that ignoring human capital implications in strategic business decisions can lead to a company's downfall. Or 20,000 extra bags. In British Airways' (BA) case this past week, a lack of focus on staffing and training led to the downfall of the baggage system. Seriously.

According to the article from Bloomberg.com, the company did 'exhaustive customer trials," but what about the staff?

From the London Times, quoting BA staff:

"Two members of the airline's volunteer staff, wearing "Can I help" t-shirts, told Times Online: "We're dealing with the staff by helping them to know where to go. A lot of them are really irate today. Only one out of the six staff security points was working so there was a big log jam - it was worse than yesterday. There's not much we can do though. It's very difficult as we've only had 20 minutes of training. There should have been more. We're directing people to go into areas we have never been into. There was a lot of information in a short amount of time. Customers are getting cross because we don't have the knowledge to help them."

While CEO Willie Walsh tries to repair BA's credibility, what can HR professionals learn from this? Brand yourself as a businessperson and learn from BA's failures.

I often write about the importance of standing out from your peers--creating that career brand. When there are thousands of people with the same skillset and experience as you have, how do you stand out?

In the case of HR professionals, the lesson isn't just to say "I'm a strategic partner." The lesson is to cite examples like this BA debacle, think about what you would differently, and work it into your brand. Maybe you're a learning and development expert and you have the ability to look past what training new employees need, to the learning needs for every situation.

Had an HR professional at BA stood up and yelled "here's what could happen if we don't prepare for A, B, and C" then they would be losing shareholder value today. And that's a career brand lesson for any professional. Brands are all about meeting the needs of the consumer. In the case of a career brand, you're meeting the need of a company.

So ask yourself--what part of my brand demonstrates my ability to either (a) make the company money and/or (b) protect shareholder value?

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