Only Third of Companies Offer Formal HR Leadership

September 2, 2009 – Organizations that offer an HR Leadership Development Program (HRLDP) do so to feed the succession pipeline and/or to make HR more strategic, but few actually offer such a program, according to a recent study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp). Only 29 percent of respondents said their organization offers a formal HRLDP. Of those that do, 62 percent said that such programs – to a high or very high extent – feed their succession pipeline, make HR more strategic (62 percent), improve performance of HR practitioners (58 percent), identify high-potential employees within HR (57 percent) or attract strong HR talent (34 percent). Nevertheless, most of the respondents acknowledge that participation in the HRLDP is limited. Almost 40 percent of respondents said that HRLDP participants are required to partake in job rotations as part of their development. “It's encouraging that the companies that have HR leadership development programs are focusing on strategy and performance,” said Jay Jamrog, SVP of research at i4cp. “But the apparent lack of participation overall is somewhat troubling. Especially in this economy, all companies need to be looking more closely at their existing talent to sustain and grow their business in the long term.” i4cp is a vendor-free network of corporations focused on improving workforce productivity.