Last year, Cornell University's Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies published the results of a three-year study that sought to identify specific practices that produced measurable business results in the world of smaller businesses (those with fewer than 200 employees). As we discussed in a previous posting, what Cornell learned was that companies with management practices that emphasize the right types of people, in the right places, at the right times, doing the right things have measurably higher business results. So why aren't chief executives everywhere emptying the company coffers to improve the quality of their HR management?

The reason is simple: there is a gap between knowledge and know-how. The Cornell study also showed that managers and owners of small organizations might be aware of and be able to articulate how HR efforts positively affect business outcomes. But at the same time, the vast majority wishes they had a better understanding of exactly how to achieve these outcomes. This experience gap is at the core of the frustrations that often surround the role of the HR function in business. Whether internally or externally managed, many companies still run HR as an administrative or tactical resource designed to "make employee problems go away." The upshot? If the results of the Cornell study are an indication, companies that don't expand HR's role and hold it accountable as one of the key drivers of an organization's bottom-line results will see their performance begin to slip considerably compared to competitors who have made this crucial link between HR practices and results.