Yesterday, I read an article from Workforce Management on the correlation, or lack there of, between HR and the popular television show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation around failures and successes within various organizations. All this talk of forensic science reminded me of a speaking engagement I attended with Jim Stroud last year on Resume Forensics. The audience was quite taken aback with Jim's insight into deciphering the meaning of a resume.

It's quite fascinating to me ... to think of HR as a science. It's one thing to dissect a resume to the point of learning the nuances of an individual and potentially uncovering other candidates hidden within one resume. It's another thing to provide a clear lens into why organizations succeed and fail. Consider this:

Even if HR had no responsibility for a failure in question, it must become accountable for identifying the causes of the failure and the steps that can be taken to prevent future occurrences.

If your organization has not yet headed down the accountability path, prepare yourself. John Sullivan further explains how companies such as Microsoft, GE and Intel dig deep to fully understand how and why failures happen. But are they implementing the appropriate tools to truly test their validity? In most cases, the answer is no. Time and time again HR organizations put out fires that could have been prevented had they been privy to the right resources.

Follow CSI’s lead: Give your investigation team the tools it needs, report to the scene of your organization’s "crime" and get to work. What you see before you is an opportunity to learn—and improve business results.

I couldn't agree more, John. Let's focus our efforts on the consistent measurement and improvement of the areas we feel are most critical to HR and staffing today. One can only hope that along the way, we become better educated and informed to be better practitioners of the art and science of attracting, retaining and developing people. After all, we learn from our mistakes. And it's okay to admit it.