HR's Role in Corporate Governance

In an interview, Richard Leblanc, award-winning educator, lawyer, consultant, and author, discussed the future of HR's role in corporate governance. Leblanc said HR has always suffered from the perception that it's not professionalized. Hopefully Dodd-Frank will cause the professionalization of human resource officers in a way that the general counsel, the corporate secretary, the internal audit function all report up into the committees. There's already an emphasis on professionalizing this very important reporting function. CHROs have well developed definitional and assessment methodologies for the competencies of senior management succession planning and director renewal, and they really should be part of this competency assessment if you're doing it properly and not leaving the responsibility to their accounting and legal colleagues. The spotlight is on HR, and regulation will bring the professionalization and the maturity of the HR function over the next 10 years, and he thinks that that's a good thing.