In an interview a little while back, Merck CEO Dick Clark (not that one; the other one) said that “‘culture eats strategy for lunch’ if a firm does not possess the ‘enabling systems and structures’ that support and co-ordinate with a desired strategic direction” (from a post on Consulting Times).

The post goes on the describe how few managers (around 20%) devote any real resources to the development of a hiring culture or even a work culture. But the kinds of “people problems” created by that lack of HR attention can have a disastrous effect on the bottom line and make it difficult to acquire quality talent down the road.

Referring to Clark’s statements, Gautam Ghosh points asks readers to

“guess which is the only function which impacts organisational culture everyday [sic]? Yes, our humble friendly HR function. Every person hired, every compensation cycle changed, every performance management change impacts the overall organizational culture.”

That means that merely going through the motions of talent acquisition without considering how you are contributing to the your organization’s HR culture means your HR department will suffer. Guess what happens if HR suffers? Bye-bye, bottom line.

We’ve written about how creating and maintaining a better hiring culture here, here and here, just to link a few. As we’ve said, a better hiring culture, which leads to better recruiting results, comes from a better overall work culture, if only because that’s going to make your organization more attractive to those hard-to-get candidates. Take a good look at your hiring/recruiting system, at the networking you do, at the online solutions you have in place for reaching that talent. Are you going forward with a culture or just a strategy? Which one do you think will attract top talent?

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