HR professionals are rethinking everything from HR’s structure to its delivery of services to the very competencies that is needs to survive and succeed
When it comes to HR, changes on the surface don’t being to reveal the complexity of what’s happening behind the scenes. HR professionals are rethinking everything from HR’s structure to its delivery of services to very competencies that it needs to survive and succeed.
In fact, 38% of HR professionals had responsibilities added to their plates during the preceding year, according to the Bureau of National Affairs’ (BNA) HR Department Benchmarks and Analysis 2004. New roles such as managing strategic partnerships, protecting trade secrets and monitoring corporate ethics programs are becoming part of the expectations for HR professionals. Add these to the pulls of the daily administrative load and a growing focus on human capital measurement and the HR platter has become heave indeed.
These broad responsibilities are likely to call into focus a completely new crop of HR competencies. Financial literacy, business acumen, cultural astuteness, negotiation skills and the ability to follow and forecast trends are among the talents sought in HR practitioners. Just how HR professionals will use these new skills to bring value-added services to the organization is also of concern. HR continues to experiment with centralization, decentralization, what and how much to outsource and other decisions concerning HR’s structure and its ideal service delivery scheme.
