All of this culture is built on the back of HR’s role as a strategic business partner. Merrett emphasizes the importance of understanding the business’ core strategies, challenging the prevailing notion that employee engagement is not always treated as a business objective – underscoring the need for organizations to invest in their most valuable resource: their people.
“HR needs to understand so that we can better support the business,” he says. “Employee engagement is strongly correlated to higher operational and personnel performance.”
‘It’s not a fad – it needs to be a strategy’
Alongside the prioritization of understanding these core strategies, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion also emerge as key priorities for Merrett. He dismisses the idea that DEI is a fleeting trend and stresses the continuous nature of DEI efforts, recognizing its impact on attracting top talent and enhancing overall business performance.
“It’s not a fad,” Merrett says. “It needs to be a business strategy. Culture fit is a thing of the past – we need to think in terms of culture add, which is not a new idea but it’s so important. We need not to ask if the candidate will fit in but instead how they can add to the team. We need to ask ourselves, ‘What skills and viewpoints are we missing on the team? Do they really need to be able to talk about the hockey playoffs to succeed on the Hyundai team?’ And that answer has to be no.”
HRD recently spoke with Microsoft Canada’s HR head on why it’s important to stay humble