In my session, I argued that L&D needs to form part of HR as both are focusing on the same outcomes and are developing their activities in the same sorts of ways (informal, social, mobile, gamified etc). I also argued that L&D shouldn’t just become part of the business because we need prioritise, not de-emphasise, the strategic creation of human capital across the whole organisation – not just meet short-term needs in different parts of a business.
40% of the audience voted that L&D should be part of HR, and given that this was an L&D conference, and that we didn’t count abstentions, I thought that I did quite well!
And I particularly liked these tag clouds, taken from 100 jobs advertised on Changeboard between July and December 2011, showing the difference between HR jobs and L&D jobs – and I think Paul is right to point out the lack of overlap between these two (and also the absence of the word ‘strategic’ from the HR tags).
HR:
L&D:
Actually, I think both of these fail to be strategic, and perhaps what both Paul and I were arguing for, despite disagreeing on whether HR and L&D should be split vertically from each other, was more horizontal separation from the strategic and the tactical aspects of both (sub-)professions. Perhaps Lawler was onto something suggesting a split between HR Business Partnering and Organisational Effectiveness?
Slide credits: Paul Jagger (thanks!)
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This is really interesting Jon and I think the word clouds are revealing. The lack of 'strategy' in the HR one is indeed a worry, especially as words such as 'checks''maintain' and 'support' are quite visible whereas 'business' and 'perform' have less emphasis. HR and L&D should not be separated - it is another issue of silos and will inevitably mean a fight for budgets/share of the leader's ear when instead there should be a a comprehensive, joined-up approach to achieve positive business outcomes. It is perhaps revealing that in the L&D cloud there are few business-focused words - instead it is about training and programmes! Shame to see 'coaching' so small and what about mentoring and ROI? These are where development is today and if L&D professionals continue to see themselves outside of HR, which itself is having to work hard to prove its business worth, then I feel they may putting themselves in an exposed place. Though, looking at the clouds and seeing that the info is from Changeboard, I do suspect these both may be fairly junior roles in HR and L&D and perhaps we would see a different picture higher up.
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