HR’S ROLE in promoting ethics, measuring human capital and the competencies of HR professionals are among the key concerns of American HR professionals over the coming year, according to recent research
HR’S ROLE in promoting ethics, measuring human capital and the competencies of HR professionals are among the key concerns of American HR professionals over the coming year, according to recent research.
Conducted by The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the research delves into issues that are affecting macro-trends in the workplace and the jobs, duties and concerns of HR professionals.
The study, which took in 558 HR professionals, also found that demonstrating HR’s return on investment, an increase in outsourcing for HR expertise and responding to the changing demographics of a diverse workforce were key trends for the profession.
“Successful businesses can adapt to changing economic, political and social conditions,” said Susan Meisinger, CEO of SHRM.
“Great companies have HR professionals leading the way with smart people strategies as organisations adapt to changing times.”
With the rising tide of corporate scandals over the past few years, the role of HR in dealing with breaches of ethics was of particular importance.
“Not only will the issue demand more time as policies become more comprehensive, but the strategic importance of the issue is likely to make it an even more central concern of the HR profession,” the SHRM 2004-2005 Workplace Forecast found.
It predicted that both internal and external pressure on both companies and their HR functions to develop robust but workable ethics policies would only increase.
Another key trend was in the process of measuring human capital, which is closely linked to demonstrating HR’s ROI.
The effectiveness of leveraging organisational human capital and its impact on business performance could only be measured through the knowledge, experience and attributes of employees, according to the survey.
It found that developments in human capital measurement would focus on two areas: the transformation of tacit to explicit knowledge through the use of knowledge management systems, and the development of ‘social work networks’, which would enable tacit knowledge to be quickly and effectively identified and utilised by coworkers and their employers.
The report also found that competencies for the next generation of HR professionals could be narrowed down to the five areas of personal credibility, HR delivery, HR technology, business knowledge and strategic contribution.
“HR professionals are very aware of the importance of developing these competencies, but are also equally aware that finding ways to actually demonstrate and measure the impact that these attributes and actions have on business performance is also crucial,” the report states.
Other key trends for American HR professionals include the ability to build people management components into key business transactions, HR’s involvement in offshoring and the use of technology to perform transactional HR functions.
