January 10, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

Innovation & the HR Officer

By Richard Crespin

In a recession, existing businesses shed jobs in an effort to cut costs and hoard cash for the lean months ahead.  As the economy recovers, they start to add these jobs back.  It’s economic churn, not new economic growth. So where does new economic growth come from?  Innovation. 

Recent work by the Kauffman Foundation highlights the role of small business in generating the growth that fuels the economy’s engine.  No doubt they’re right.  Small business plays a vital role.  But this draws the circle too narrowly.  It’s not just small businesses, it’s new businesses.  New businesses, along with the new innovations they produce, drive economic growth.  In the popular imagination, new businesses get started by boot-strapping entrepreneurs toiling away in garages, but in truth new businesses come in a variety of shapes and sizes.  Some are classic start-ups.  Others get started within existing businesses.  And that’s where you come in: the HR Officer has a distinct role to play in creating a culture of innovation.

Take a business like IBM.   IBM is the single largest holder of patents filed with the US Patent & Trademark Office.  These innovations spawned dozens if not hundreds of “start-ups” within IBM and hundreds if not thousands of start-ups outside IBM.  How IBM recruits, retains, and works with its alumni has played a critical role in its ability to create a whole ecosphere of economic growth for the past 100 years.

To understand how HR Officers create cultures of innovation and growth, we’ve invited Bob Litan from the Kauffman Foundation and the Brookings Institution, along with Scott Case from Start-up America to join us at the HRO Today Forum April 30 to May 2nd in Washington, DC.  Together we’ll explore how HR can foster an innovation to generate new and sustainable growth for the company and the economy as a whole. 

We’ve also invited Jim Quigley, CEO Emeritus of Deloitte, author of Together, and current head of Deloitte’s Leadership Institute, to discuss how HR Officers can act as stewards of the overall business strategy.  And we’ll bring all of these discussions to a head in a series of roundtables with your peer HR Officers, other corporate execs, and public policy makers to find areas for collective action — how we can work together to put our companies and the economy as a whole on a high growth path.

To join us for these important discussions, register today at www.hrotodayforum.com.  Register by March 16 to save almost 40%!