As if things weren't hard enough in corporate America, now we've got a professor telling CFOs that most of their HR colleagues are misguided on the issue of employee engagement, not-so-hot at analytics, and maybe even poorly qualified as managers of strategic talent.
Oy. Just what we need at a time when it's more important than ever for people managers and financial managers to work together. But even before CFO.com published "Memo to CFOs: Don't Trust HR," you could see it coming.
When it's economic crunch time, you're always going to get tension between those focused on the bottom line and those focused on keeping employees' trust. Reductions in force (RIF) are awful tempting, and often necessary, where payroll makes up a huge portion of the balance sheet. So it's little wonder that top managers are going to be asking one another (and themselves), "Are we focused on the right stuff? Shouldn't we be tougher and smarter in these hard times? Are we just being too nice?"
