What's Cool About HR - From The Readers

Cool HR readers, this one's for you! I asked a question, "What's so cool about HR?" and you answered.

On the Twitter front,@adowling says making offers to qualified job candidate & letting frustrated employees vent is cool and @beneubanks says it's finding, developing, motivating, rewarding, & retaining talent- this ain't your daddy's personnel department!

There is tons of coolness in the blog comments section too. You can see all of the comments here.

Chris Ferndinandi: What makes HR cool is that, when done right, it distinguishes the good companies from the great ones. Great companies have highly strategic HR departments that know what they need to meet their business goals. They recruit great people. They inspire them through awesome programs. They help managers become better managers. They help people become better performers. And ultimately, we help the company make more money.

Paul Herbert: People are the only competitive advantage today. Therefore, HR is the driver of a company's competitive advantage. Those that understand this survive - those that don't get bailouts.

Jeremy Stone: Want to be cool? Show how a comprehensive strategy for talent management for the whole life cycle of an employee will increase productivity and improve employee engagement.

Trish McFarlane: I view HR as the clock/watch makers of the company. Instead of just looking at the surface to see what time it is, we're the ones who try to open it all up and see what makes it tick.

Creative Chaos Consultant: Strategic decisions made, opportunities provided, and risks managed. Paint a picture that will show those leadership candidates that HR is not just cool, it's AWESOME!

Steve Boese: To me, what makes HR cool are the people... the thousands of caring and insightful HR pros are what makes HR cool to me.

Laurie Ruettimann: You know what's cool about HR, Lisa? I think we're undiscovered gems -- and I think that's kind of cool. When we shine, Lisa, people will notice.

In a recent post, In defense of HR, the HR Maven points out that "most of the people in HR work incredibly hard and care deeply about the work, their employer and employees." Now, that's definitely cool!

On that note, peace out to all of the undiscovered gems - the caring and insightful HR professionals who come to work each and every day to make a difference. And do.

What's So Cool About HR?

Every year, I get to talk with a group of medical center leadership candidates about the HR department. I present, they ask questions and, because it is a small group, we have lots of time to interact.

This time I want to connect.

I want to flip this whole "department overview" idea on it's head. OUT with understanding a little more about the complexities of Federal HR and IN with coolness. HR is one of THE coolest departments in the building and when I get through with them, the leadership candidates will be climbing over each other to get onto our team or going back out to their teams and singing our praises {this is you applauding me and no, I am not sniffing anything this morning!}

Hold your judgement when I tell you that, yes, I have been using very un-presentation Zen like PowerPoint's with staffing structure, lists of functional areas etc {this is me hanging my head in shame}. Not very cool. Not very cool at all.

I need your help. I am looking for anything you've got (slideshares, ideas, reasons, pictures, phrases, quotes) that I can use to get the word out to our leadership candidates that "HR is Cool." Now that I am thinking, I could probably use a boost myself. And so could my department.

Hit me in the comments, contact me, @ or DM me in Twitter, connect on LinkedIn, etc with whatever you got. I promise to put whatever I get to good use and I will share too.

So, what's so cool about HR?

 Subscribe in a reader

Photo credit iStockphoto