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HRO Today Forum Preview Figure 1. The HR Maturity Scale. Source: Paul Kearns 2012 Executives resistant to concept of people as human capital t Management HR Management Human Capital Management t Administration Stage 1 Personnel Administration Stage 2 Good Professional Practice t REACTIVE Stage 3 Effective HR Management Value. Once management matures, HR can start to demonstrate its value. But it has to keep that value in mind rather than copy "best practise." In the foreword to Professional HR, Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, who co-author of Hard Facts, the de facto bible on evidence-based management (EBM), concluded: "That's the state of play in human resources today—mindless imitation of what others are doing, little to no systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of management practises and programmes, infrequent data-driven diagnoses of the problems HR is expected to address—in short, little of the professionalism now almost taken for granted in medicine." In this brave new world of EB-HR, this notion of "best practise" is rightly usurped by the much more robust definition that the only best practises are those that can be seen to be adding value in a specific organisational context. What price the "best practises" that were in place in BP and large banks? Moreover, if HR wants to attach a convincing dollar-sign to its latest HR initiative or talent management programme, or calculate ROI, then it has to start with some evidence that there is a current problem for which "talent management" is part of the answer. HR has to connect directly to business performance indices. EB-HR is all about making these connections crystal clear. Evidence based. Becoming evidence based is a personal journey, but some people are more quickly attuned than others. They never blindly copy anyone else. They tend to harbour a natural scepticism and will want to see evidence with their own eyes. They make few assumptions and take nothing at face value. They work out causal connections for themselves and think long and hard before embarking on any initiative. Interestingly, HR is not the only area of [10] HRO TODAY GLOBAL | SUMMER 2013 Stage 4 HRM becomes integral to business operations Stage 5 Transition from operational HR to strategic focus t Stage 0 No Conscious Personnel Management Stage 6 Organisation becomes a whole system STRATEGIC management that is not currently evidence based, so it does not need to make too many apologies for its late arrival on the scene. EBM is the subject of hot debate in leading business schools and academia, especially in the light of the global financial crisis. EBM is pushing management towards adopting the scientific method and greater experimentation, the source of all innovation. So where does this leave the future of HR outsourcing? Well, HR practitioners should not become over-awed or overwhelmed by so-called "big data" and "human analytics." They should never forget the golden rule of computing— garbage in, garbage out—which is especially pertinent in any field concerned with intangibles and the infinitely variable resource that is the human race. Google might try to convince the world that it has an algorithm for everything, including the way it manages its people. On closer inspection, you will find that it does not apply such "progressive" thinking in its acquisitions of more conventional organizations. Certainly HR has some big decisions of its own to make. If inhouse HR strategy is not working as well as it should, there is likely to be a great market opportunity for outsourcing vendors who can offer the extra value that comes with the very highest levels of professionalism. Paul Kearns has taught HR Strategy for many years on executive and MBA programmes and chairs the Institute of HR Maturity's governing Council (www.hrmaturity.com) and the UK National Committee on HR standards. His latest book Professional HR. Evidence-Based People Management & Development is published by Routledge. He will be speaking at the HRO Today Forum Europe, 12-14 November, in London.