Search for “Finance vs. Human Resources” in google. In less than a second you’ll receive upwards of 74 million hits discussing this topic.
The Association for Management Consulting Firms (AMCF) in New York decided to combine executives from these 2 affinity groups recently to explore this subject and look for insight.
Some of the most senior level Human Capital and Financial Management leaders from some of the world’s largest professional services firms were in attendance. Clearly this conflict is an ongoing struggle that can get in the way of business performance.
Conflicts fall into 2 main categories:
- “Numbers” are the language of business vs. “people” are the language of business
- HR isn’t very good at data analytics vs. Finance aren’t people experts
Greta Roberts, CEO of Talent Analytics, Corp was asked to use our talent analytics platform to explore – from a talent analytics perspective – if there is any insight we could visualize.
Methodology:
- 16 Human Capital and Financial Management Executives answered a quick (25 minute), online survey.
- Our Talent Analytics platform, Advisor™, analyzed Affinity Group results,
- Within seconds, executive team results were turned into metrics that could be analyzed and visualized
- Affinity Group talent analytics results were presented during the AMCF Conference
Review talent analytics information visualization here:
Communication Style Differences
Ambitions / Business Strivings
Main differences:
- HR feels more need to take care of the people aspect (Altruistic Ambition is higher)
- Finance is more driven to research, learn and come to objective conclusions based on data (Theoretical Ambition is much higher)
Interesting to note that both teams are very high on Authoritative ambitions meaning this particular sample (and perhaps others as well) will feel very responsible as a steward of their particular area.
Conclusions:
- These talent analytics would have predicted clashes between these 2 areas. It isn’t personal.
- In this session, executives from both “sides” found it fascinating to learn about the different drivers and approaches of “the other team”
- Much ado was made about the need for the other team to have the drives and approaches they did (for the health of the business and the success of the strategy)
- Though talent analytics may not immediately solve this issue, all agreed that talent analytics’ visualization could perhaps be the first step in creating bridges to the other
