- Strong HR leadership. As with any major change effort, a strong leader can develop a clear vision, motivate others to share that vision, and help them work toward achieving it. In order to change the role of HR in an organization, the HR leader will need to work both within the HR group and with the organizational leaders to reshape everyone's expectations of what HR can and will deliver. The success of the change will depend upon HR's ability to meet the real needs of the organization and the credibility it develops.
- Acute future orientation. One of the ways that HR can provide value is to understand how changing environmental, organizational, and workforce factors will likely influence the business, anticipate the associated HR needs, and be prepared to deliver appropriate solutions to meet those needs. By maintaining a focus on workplace trends, for instance, HR can prepare to evaluate the impact that particular changes are likely to have on an organization's people and processes, and be prepared to work with the business leaders to decide how to respond-being ahead of the curve, not behind it. For example, one movement that is likely to have significant impact on the way people are hired, managed, and valued is that of intellectual capital. A "new role" HR department is one that has learned about intellectual capital and its implications, evaluated the impact on current practice, and developed ideas and recommendations for changing HR practice and other business processes.
- Flexibility and creativity. An HR group that is successful in the future will likely be one that is responsive to the changing needs of its client organization. Responsiveness in the changing world of work will require being flexible-as the organizations change, so will their needs and priorities. In addition, traditional activities and processes may not be sufficient to meet the unique needs of the future-HR leaders will likely rely on creativity of their groups to achieve effective results. Increasing globalization of the market will create a need for both flexibility and creativity as businesses try to succeed in new locations, with a new workforce, and with new customers.
- Delivering value. Although this is not a new challenge for HR, it remains a critical one. HR is still perceived by many within today's organizations as simply a non-revenue generating function. It is important to make apparent the value provided by working with the management team to hire the right people, manage them well, pay them appropriately, and build a working environment that encourages success. Beatty and Schneier (1997) extended the concept of delivering value within the organization by arguing that HR must deliver economic value to the customers, as well as to employees.
· Business unit assignment.
Some companies are assigning HR employees to specific business units as
a way of enabling them to develop a focused relationship with a small
part of the business. This relationship can be enforced when the HR
person has a direct reporting relationship with the leader of the
business unit. In these situations, the central HR group usually
provides information and services to the "distributed" HR
representatives, who then deliver the service personally to the business
unit. One advantage of this structure is that it fosters the
flexibility and creativity mentioned above, as the local HR people can
modify and tailor processes and services to meet the needs of their
assigned business units.
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