Revenue probably isn’t on your HR scorecard.
But I think HR has a lot more opportunity to influence revenue and growth than we tend to talk about.
HR sits in a really interesting place inside an organization. You have visibility into the people experience, leadership development, recruiting, communication, performance, organizational structure and culture. You see how people enter the company, how they experience it once they are there and often where things start getting harder than they need to be.
All of those things eventually make their way to the customer.
And that is where the connection to growth gets interesting.
Think about the experience a customer has with a company. They experience how well people communicate. Whether someone takes ownership. Whether departments work together. Whether the promise made during the sales process matches what actually gets delivered. Whether people understand the business well enough to make good decisions.
Those experiences are being created by people working inside the environment leadership has built.
HR has an opportunity to influence that environment.
And yes, I promise the revenue part is coming. This part matters because it explains why I think the connection exists in the first place.
Most cultures are probably not broken
We use some pretty dramatic language when we talk about culture.
Toxic. Dysfunctional. Broken.
Of course those cultures exist. But I think a lot of companies are dealing with something much less dramatic.
They are chaotic.
And I don’t necessarily mean bad chaos.
There can be a tremendous amount of energy in a growing company. People are moving quickly. Leaders are solving problems. New opportunities are emerging. Customers are asking for things. New employees are joining. Priorities are shifting.
There can be a lot of really good energy in that.
The challenge comes when everyone starts directing that energy toward slightly different things.
One leader is emphasizing one priority. Another is focused somewhere else. Teams start interpreting what matters based on what they see from their part of the business. People are working hard, but they may not always be working from the same understanding of where the company is trying to go.
I have seen this more times than I can count. And I have plenty of stories from this one if you ever want to compare notes.
A little structure can change a lot.
Clearer communication. More shared understanding. Leaders who are aligned around what matters most. People who understand how their work connects to the customer and the business.
You don’t have to take the energy out of the organization.
You can help direct it.
And HR is often in a position to see where that energy is getting lost.
Recruiting is a great example
One of the places I think HR has much more influence than we sometimes recognize is recruiting.
HR is telling the company’s story before many employees ever walk through the door.
That is culture work.
You are helping decide who the company is looking for. You influence candidate profiles. You shape how roles are described. You can influence the interview process, what questions get asked, what leaders are looking for and how candidates experience the company along the way.
Yet recruiting can easily become a process we simply follow.
A position opens. We pull up the job description. We post it. We interview people. We make a hire.
It works.
But there is a much bigger opportunity available.
What if the recruitment process was intentionally designed around the organization you are trying to create?
What kind of person will thrive here?
What behaviors does our strategy require?
What does this person need to understand about our customers?
What are we trying to strengthen in our culture?
What should someone experience during the recruitment process that helps them understand what working here is actually going to feel like?
Those decisions matter.
Every person who enters the organization becomes part of the experience everyone else has with the company, including the customer.
That makes recruiting much more than filling an open position.
It is one of the ways you shape what the organization becomes.
There is a whole other conversation hiding inside recruitment and culture design. I am going to save that one for another day.
HR also has an incredible opportunity to influence leadership
This may be the biggest opportunity of all.
HR frequently owns or influences management development, executive development, coaching, performance conversations, succession planning and other opportunities that affect how leadership shows up.
Leadership has an enormous impact on the people experience.
How leaders communicate. How decisions get made. How priorities are reinforced. How much context people are given. Whether people understand what success looks like. How teams are expected to work together.
HR has access to those conversations.
That creates an opportunity to help leadership see things they may not always be able to see themselves.
Maybe people aren’t disengaged. Maybe they are unclear.
Maybe teams don’t need another process. Maybe two leaders are sending competing signals.
Maybe there is plenty of talent in the organization, but people don’t have enough shared understanding to use that talent together.
Sometimes the issue is considerably less complicated than we make it. That does not always mean it is easy to fix.
These are the kinds of patterns HR can surface.
The opportunity is using your influence to bring them into the leadership conversation.
Sometimes influence needs a little help
This part matters too.
HR can see something happening in an organization and still have difficulty moving it.
That is normal.
You are part of the system. There is history. There are relationships. Sometimes you have been saying something for a while and people have stopped hearing it. Sometimes you know something is happening but need help putting structure around what you are seeing.
A good outside partner can be incredibly useful here.
They can listen differently. Ask different questions. Help identify patterns. Create language around something everyone has been feeling but nobody has quite been able to articulate.
That doesn’t replace HR’s influence.
It can help build it.
Because then the organization has an opportunity to experience a result.
Communication gets clearer. Leaders start showing up differently. Teams understand what matters. Some of that unnecessary friction starts to disappear. The energy that was scattered around the organization starts moving in a more productive direction.
And HR helped make that happen.
That creates trust.
Over time, the leadership team starts to see HR differently. They begin to understand that the people conversation is also a business conversation.
And that gives HR more influence the next time an opportunity appears.
This is one of my favorite parts of the work. Once people experience the difference, you spend a lot less time convincing them the work matters.
There is a revenue conversation here
See, I told you we would get here.
The connection may not always show up neatly on a financial statement.
But it is there.
People create the customer experience.
The customer experience affects retention, referrals, reputation and the willingness to continue doing business with you.
Leadership influences how people operate.
Culture influences how well all of that energy comes together.
And HR has opportunities throughout that system to shape what happens next.
I think that is a much bigger opportunity than simply asking HR to support the business.
HR can help the business perform better.
And that is where the revenue conversation becomes very real.
So maybe the question for HR leaders is:
Where do you already have influence that could help your organization grow, and are you using it?