The journey from Personnel Department to Human Resources and Talent has taken decades. And the magic words most often used to elevate—or perhaps better define—the function in the eyes of the business include efficiency, strategy, and transformation.

These words always look good up front on the PowerPoint slides when approaching the executive table for HR initiative blessings and budget funding. But what do they really mean? And what results will they achieve?

The Human Resource Executive Online article, Talent and Transformation, says this:

While HR groups must clearly define what strategic means in their own organizations, the study's findings point toward a growing consensus about what "strategic HR" is.

Survey results found that 70% of HR leaders view talent management as a key strategy. They are not alone. Executives have also made talent management a top business priority along with talent retention.

Our key takeaways:

• Effective HR/business partnerships are built on actions that actively engage people in the recruiting and performance processes. You need a unified system that candidates, recruiters, hiring managers, executives, and employees can easily use and will rapidly adopt.

• Getting a seat at the executive table requires more than selling a program and simple ROI. You need to commit to tangible benefits of value creation and metrics for measuring recruiting and performance results such as quality of hire. Initiatives must respond to business challenges such as growth plans, leadership gaps, the need for innovation, or higher productivity, instead of HR compliance programs.

Making the words efficiency, transformation, and strategic HR equate to real business partnership value requires talent management to be a core element of the business process, not principally an HR activity. Embedding talent management into the business process—facilitated by HR and owned by line managers and employees—puts the strategy into practice.