Sustainable HR

26 September 2008:

Owens Corning pitches the value of sustainability to its customers. The Toledo, Ohio-based provider of building materials and insulation prides itself on helping clients be more energy efficient.

But for Joseph High, "sustainability" has a different meaning. As Owens Corning’s senior vice president of human resources, High is focused on maintaining the sustainability of the company’s talent pipeline throughout the world. That means that despite a difficult economy and a dismal housing market, High and his team have to continue to find and develop talent at a rapid pace.

With 19,000 employees in 26 countries, this is no easy task. But High, who has been with Owens Corning since 2004, has developed a strategy to keep his 200-person global HR team focused on the results of the business.

"I have seen HR people get so enamored with the function of HR and they act like that’s the end," he says. "But it’s just a means to the end. The end is achieving the business results."

To make sure his HR team understood its mission, last year High developed six priorities for HR. These goals center on the idea that everyone in HR has to continually focus on what they need to do to support the business of the company.

The goals include such traditional HR priorities as succession planning, recognizing and rewarding talent, and leadership development. But High also emphasizes the need for his HR team to go beyond just thinking about what they need to do today and anticipate what the company is going to need from them tomorrow, next year and the year after that.

He says HR managers need to know not only where there are skill gaps within the organization, but they also should have a plan for how those gaps will be addressed. HR should constantly be asking itself if the right people are in the right jobs.

Despite those requirements, HR managers still must stay on top of the administrative part of their jobs, High says. In fact, he expects HR managers to be as efficient as possible at transactional processes, with the goal of bringing HR back-office costs to zero, he says.

Every month, High holds a global HR town meeting. During that webcast, he and a few others on his team talk about one of the priorities.

High’s HR agenda isn’t quite complete, though. He says HR also needs to make sure that the company’s business managers are focused on the needs of customers—an element that too often companies miss.

"HR has to go look for people with the right marketing and research capabilities," he says. "But they also have to examine whether our current general managers are people who are inquisitive and curious about their customers’ business."

To stay on top of all of this, High and Owens Corning CEO Mike Thaman are intent on ensuring that all employees are clear on their goals and that there is goal alignment throughout the organization.

High says he has to make sure he understands each and every business manager’s needs. And that means open communication. High says he is on the road about 10 days a month meeting with business and HR managers around the globe.

High’s efforts have been gaining recognition. This year Owens Corning advanced on Fortune’s list of America’s Most Admired Companies, moving from fourth to third place in its industry category: building materials and glass. High recently spoke to Workforce Management New York bureau chief Jessica Marquez.