Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR, the blog written by members of Human Resources UK.
This week’s article comes hot on the heels of the next round of networking events, as yesterday we saw gatherings in Newbury and Gateshead. The feedback received so far from all the events has been very positive and I will be announcing soon steps to arrange future events. These events have seen over 100 group members mobilise to meet and network. This is my extremely tenuous link to today’s article written by John Hepworth who explores the impact of HR upon talent management and mobilisation – I did say it was tenuous!! (Ed Scrivener)
Resourcing & Talent Management – what is the role of the HR professional?
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| A typical day for an HR pro... |
That, as they say, is a very good question. In this world of economic crisis and unpredictable weather, can we as HR professionals predict and influence the nature of the [human] resource that we are able to attract to our businesses? And then, are we able to influence the line manager and the wider ‘organisation’ to manage the talent accordingly? Or are we as skilled in our influencing and prediction, as the current City traders or the local BBC weathercaster?
A typical answer to this type of question, offered by the CIPD, is that it is the job of the HR professional to – amongst other things, and my, the CIPD does manage to list a LOT of other things that the HR professional can hang their hat on in order to justify their existence, but, as they say, that is another question…don’t go there – where was I, oh yes, the job of the HR professional to mobilise a workforce.
The job of the HR professional, however, is not made any easier when you look at the elements that make up such a ‘mobilisation’:
Acquiring team members – well, even though the theory that “teams meanz success” has been around for a number of years, most notably through Belbin, there is a small but growing view that teams actually do more harm than good (see Hackman, Harvard Business Review, 2009). And in addition, it is a rare line manager that has a true grasp of their key result areas for jobs and a handle of effective job design. Which leads the HR professional to spend their time trying to second-guess what the manager actually needs and wants from their resource…
Right skills, in right place, at right time – ah ha, the delights of Human Resource Planning…I can hear you nodding off just reading the words. Yet, in mobilising a well-resourced and talented workforce, this is THE first step in success; so few companies – especially in the SME sector – do this at all, either formally or informally. More so, it is a put in the ‘too difficult’ box and line managers are left to haggle with Finance about the budget for salaries, overtime and ‘temps’ (Remember them? They were part of a flexible workforce that used to exist before the Agency Worker Regs…don’t get me started on that one…)
Retaining – both those you already have and the new ones that you manage to get. And, would you believe, that even in these stringent times, there are employers reporting shortages of the right labour? Witness the statement above about not using human resource planning and identifying the labour that delivers the work with the objectives of the company. Keeping good people in a time of boom is bad enough, so why is it also happening in ‘bust’ with the addition of skills shortages?
Dismissing the ineffective – and this may be the reason; companies and the public sector have in effect ‘slashed and burned’ in order to meet [understandable] budget constraints. We still see however the poor performer not being dismissed through capability and being made redundant instead – with a package of pay that in many cases is obscene…again, don’t get me started
Phew – that feels better. Now, for the possible solutions? Indeed, with a very much ‘solutions-focused’ feel, what can the HR professional do to affect their role in this vital area of resource and talent management?
Someone said that each change starts with a small step and I would encourage my fellow professionals to really focus on what they have achieved so far in each of the elements in mobilisation mentioned above. There is a lot – and so, what ‘small steps’ can then be developed from these successes?
Success number one for me. The CIPD is one of the largest - if not the largest professional body - in the world and their lobbying influence has taken hold in many areas, including the area of business growth, SMEs. Large corporate and public sector HR initiatives are slowly being adapted to suit SME businesses as technology and the benefits of ‘success through people’ is seen as attractive to the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Second, at the ‘coal face’, the profession of HR is being seen as valuable – even if it is there at one level to keep personnel administration effective and companies out of tribunals. By definition, there is still influence on the business and the opportunity to impact on resource and talent management.
Finally – and most importantly – the HR professional can acutely influence and support line managers in job design, i.e. MAKING JOBS INTERESTING. If we do that only, we have a major effect on retention of good people and give ourselves a chance at managing talent properly.
About the author
John helps organisations, especially in the SME sector, achieve competitive advantage. He has a particular interest in translating strategic HR management into practice. Typically, this has meant focusing his efforts on recruitment and selection, performance management and training and development activities. John sees the challenge of matching the development of internal competencies with the externally driven demands of the market place as one of the key themes in developing organisational engagement, capability and performance.
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Discuss HR is the blog for Human Resources UK, the leading LinkedIn group for those involved with HR in the UK. Next week’s Discuss HR will be published on Thursday 20th October and will be written by our newest recruit to the Discuss HR team, Performance Consultant Una Doyle.
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