Globally, the workplace is experiencing rapid changes and organizations are looking for means of adapting to the changes. The Human Resources (HR) is an integral part of a structured organization. The transformation in markets and business environments are in many ways having effects on traditional HR functions. Each business or service enterprise has as its mission, to achieve sustainability and profitability. Also, shareholders, employees, and customers’ satisfaction are important factors in obtaining the desired bottom-line. Keeping that balance means the HR personnel needs to develop competencies that are congruent and useful in a highly competitive global workplace. The HR has not significantly been flexible and adaptive to the business aspect of the corporate field. As a human capital niche, future HR needs to know their business environment and the terminologies that are familiar to the firm. Technical skills required from HR professional and the skills for strategic thinking will be requisites in the future as part of competencies. This paper looks at two articles on HR and considers the nature of HR and the changes that need to make it an efficient organizational function. In facing the future, cost containment skills are going to be part of the requirements for HR professionals.
The expectation is extensive and high on the need for change in HR functions. The traditional administrative, transactional, and paperwork tasks are not so central to corporations relative to business strategies and bottom line. The traditional roles of HR professionals are essential, but are fading because of concepts and factors such as outsourcing and advances in technology. For HR professionals to be more relevant in future, new competencies and organizational commitment are necessary. The new skills will allow them to compete for new roles. It will also cause the HR personnel to change niche quickly and become part of the business bottom-line strategic planning. The senior management and stakeholders will see the HR professional as partners in costs and competitive advantage planning.
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The level of subcontracting within organizations is narrowing the HR role further. Functions such as training, temporary employment, and payroll, are now being delivered by external consultancies. Bates (2002) listed five HR jobs for the future: CFO, internal consultant, talent manager, vendor manager, and the self-service leader. According the Bates (2002) “Those who aspire to leadership roles within the profession will have to become more strategic, more proactive, more involved in the overall business of their employer,” (n.p). The future human resource personnel need to be open-minded and current in facing the challenge of training and change in the new global workplace. Human resources in the new global context must demonstrate skills that are not in the traditional HR field. Education, training, and certification are important steps in achieving future HR competencies.
Many organizations are going lean and the HR is going to suffer from this approach if there are no adjustments in the area of expanding competencies. The future HR individual will be part of the organization’s accounting analyst, who applies accounting and economic input to the business by analyzing the cost-effectiveness and value adding potential of decisions and employees. The HR personnel or professional will act as an internal consultant to display across the board, competencies, ethical, and legal counselling to line managers. As a talent manager, the HR person will use different competency models fit for the organization to harness and develop what is best for the employer. The vendor-managing role of the future HR is to determine the external functions that “can be handled better and less expensively” (Bates, 2002). This is achievable when future HR professionals stay abreast of trends, monitor costs, and maintain close relationships with external agencies or outsourcing firms.
The purpose of these engagements is for the HR person to demonstrate involvement in improving competitive advantage, cost reduction, sustainability, and profitability in the business. Bates (2002) notes that to be a future HR professional “You have to know finance, market strategy, technology, staffing and training needs, managing change, managing culture. You have to develop credibility.” (n.p). In addition, it means that the HR professional have an understanding of the business, the customer, employees, and employer. The future HR persons, as self-service leaders will connect with internal and external IT specialists to develop and operate web portal for the business. The web portal will perform most of the digital functions of the organization. The basic administrative functions of HR should be accessed by employees in time and when needed on their web-enabled platforms. The priorities of the HR are to ensure that the business goals of the organization are strategically achievable and measurable.
Human resources in an organization have the capabilities to transform the business prospects of the enterprise. For a long time, HR have thwarted expansion and hindered growth in businesses. Hammonds (2005) sees HR as “a dark bureaucratic force that blindly enforces nonsensical rules, resists creativity, and impedes constructive change.” (n.p). The text highlights the ineffective practices of the traditional transactions and paperwork that characterized the HR. it mentioned things such as appraisals that does not improve the employees competencies and professional development. According to Hammonds (2005), “Most human-resources managers aren’t particularly interested in, or equipped for, doing business.” (n.p). this view is to assert that the future HR personnel should be involve in business strategy rather than administrative functions which are adding minimal value to the bottom-line because of outsourcing, and subcontracting. Hammonds points to the fact that HR will play critical roles in organizations in the future if the utilize the strategic position of its functions because “HR is the corporate function with the greatest potential — the key driver, in theory, of business performance” (n.p). This understanding means that bottom-line of a business has a bearing on the HR and vice versa. HR in this regard is the custodian of the investment of the organization in which it serves.
The ability to balance internal resources for better performance outcome, and how to involve external resources into the organization is a challenge for the old, traditional HR. The bureaucratic and administrative huddles and practices of HR functions in the past will not achieve these goals because the practices are not business-centered (Hammonds, 2005). One of the reasons for outsourcing is to cut cost, and improve profit. The future HR person has to contribute to a cost management strategy to sit at the decision-making table. Organizations that seek to achieve quality, improve core competencies, and be technologically up-to-date will most like prefer outsourcing because the HR team does not these competencies. The business environment is changing significantly. HR professionals need to provide excellent services in their organizations as agents of change, administrative experts, as well as strategic partners in the business. The most important of these new functions according to Hammonds is the strategic partnership to the business.
In conclusion, HR departments are experiencing a flux because of the changes in the global marketplace. Organizations demand new competencies from HR professional if they are to stay relevant. Outsourcing is an indication of their minimal contribution to organizational bottom-line. Bates argues that the future HR person has to be adept in financial matters, market strategy, and technology savvy, demonstrate credibility, and be change and culture managers. This personal development will require some education and certification. Hammonds, on the other hand argues that beyond being administrative experts, they have to become strategic partners in the business to contribute to the bottom-line.
References
Bates, S. (2002). Facing the Future. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/Pages/0702covstory.aspx
Hammonds, K. H. (2005). Why We Hate HR. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/53319/why-we-hate-hr
