In newspapers, magazines, and business journals, on television, at seminars, in boardrooms, and around office water coolers, the word is out: Employee loyalty to companies is no more, and the trade-off of loyalty for job security has gone the way of the slide rule, typewriter, and adding machine. Even though down sizing, restructuring, reengineering, and job elimination dominate the current corporate business scene, industry profits are the highest in ten years. So how important can loyalty to an employee really be with results like that to reinforce the opinions of so many business analysts and experts? One certainly would have an uphill battle refuting the effectiveness of these practices, especially in the short run.

The really savvy companies, large and small, recognize, however, that people have never been more important to business success than they are today. Every organization depends upon its employees for tomorrow as surely as it does for today. Experts share that getting and keeping the BEST will be a priority for every employer who expects to have any chance of competitive survival in the 21st century.

Most large organizations today were once small organizations with some very good personnel. When these businesses were small, they genuinely believed in and practiced the principle of primary reliance on their employees for the success of the corporation. But as they grew larger, they published bigger and better recruiting brochures, annual reports, and operating statements, and began to forget that their people brought them to where they’re going. Many of those growing businesses who forgot to practice the principle of primary reliance on their employees ultimately failed.

One very practical means of emphasizing and maintaining our people as a valued resource is to establish, as most organizations have, a function known as the human resources management to represent the best interests of their employees and thereby of management as well.

The truly effective, proactive, and functional human resources (HR) department can be the key that unlocks the doors of apathy, unconcern, or, in some cases, outright hostility toward employees that some chief executives seem to feel toward the people who work for them. The HR generalist must first understand and believe part of their role is to act as a catalyst in making changes within the “corporate” attitude toward people. In addition, one could share that part of the role of HR is to assist the leader/manager in growing their employees while doing everything possible for them to succeed. Pursuing this theme, we will explore what makes a good human resources department work and how human resources can be structured to operate with maximum effectiveness strategically for both the employee and the organization.