If you don't know where
you are going, any road will take you there.”
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
We are living in what Peter Drucker calls "The Age of
Discontinuity"- a time that subjects all of us to wave after wave of
fundamental change and forces us to engage in what Charles Handy calls
"upside-down thinking." Virtually everything we know and all our
assumptions about managerial practice are being called into question, and for
good reason.
In a hyper connected world today transformations become sine-qua-
non to provide competitive differentiator. The evolution and subsequent
transformation of the human resource function is closely linked to people's
attitudes about work, the evolution of employment-related laws, economical,
political and social trends.
To understand the Human Resource transformation journey that is
taking place across organisations, it is necessary to understand the
metamorphosis of this function through history. This also subtly provides a
glimpse about the changing nature of workforce.
HR Evolution
The advent of the Industrial Age moved the notion of work from
guilds to steam-driven factories. The introduction of the assembly line brought
a need for low-skilled employees capable of performing repetitive tasks.
Management philosophy at the turn of the century was epitomized by Henry Ford,
who often wondered why workers brought their heads to work when all he really
needed was their hands and feet. With the advent of Industrial revolution,
Industrial welfare was the first form of human resource management.
As time progressed, concerns grew about poor working conditions,
low wages, child labour and long work hours and work days. Workers began to
band together and form unions to protect their interests and improve living
standards. Government stepped in to provide basic rights, protections for
workers and created Labour department. Gradually, forward-thinking employers
recognized that productivity was connected to worker satisfaction and
involvement. Soon the personnel profession grew out of concerns about employee
absenteeism and attempted to solve worker problems.
In the early 1930’s, the emerging field of human relations derived
new insights from famous ‘Hawthorne Studies’ that linked improved productivity
to management philosophies emphasizing employee feelings, communications,
cooperation and involvement. This new thinking about employee cooperation grew
from the works of Elton Mayo -- known as the Father of Human Relations.
As the decade of 60’s and 70s unfolded, business leaders began to
appreciate the production that resulted when managers acted less like
taskmasters and more like good leaders, counsellors and facilitators. By 1980’s
highly educated group of employees arrived who desired jobs that were
challenging and interesting.
The
Changing Nature of Work
The emergence of services industry gave further impetus to
knowledge workers. Work became more cognitively complex, dependent on
interpersonal skills, technology, employee mobility and conducted with speed.
With the dawn of new millennium, the concept of life time employment became
elusive and managing employees became very different from what it used to
be. Whereas in the past, the measure of a good manager was the bottom
line, today’s managers are measured not only by their results, but chiefly by
their ability to manage and retain people.
Human
Capital Strategy
As industries around the world turn their attention to a new era
of growth, the importance of an enterprise’s human capital has risen
dramatically. Acquiring and retaining new customers; generating new ideas;
improving productivity: these challenges place new demands on the workforce and
those who lead it.
Every company engages in some sort of workforce planning, of
course, and has processes in place to source, develop and deploy its people.
Yet the economic downturn and the speed of marketplace change have outstripped
the ability of traditional talent management programs to meet business needs.
Executives must now pursue a more comprehensive and integrated human capital
strategy that includes the management of talent as well as the associated
leadership, culture and organization components that multiply the value of
talent and create an enterprise that is better able to execute business
strategy and adapt to a changing marketplace.
The Key aspect of Human
Capital Strategy is mainly focused on Alignment with business strategy,
Resource optimization, Cost Leadership, Corporate governance and Risk Management & Mitigation.
Redefined
Vision & Structure
The changing nature of work compelled HR to create new vision and
structure. The New HR Vision is to become a strategic business partner and
thereby create an environment of excellence and congenial work-culture.
To support new business imperatives organisations incorporated a flexible, responsive,
innovative and yet simple organisation design, developed by Professor Dave
Ulrich of Michigan University. This new organisation design envisages multiple
roles for HR - Strategic Advisors, Change Agents, Employee advocates and
Administrator.
Redefined
HR Roles
Competitive advantage doesn’t come merely from people, but more
importantly from the way organisations manage them.
In many organisations all the four roles exists however several
organisations have also combined these roles and segregated them into three
areas. Corporate HR team now acts
and plays the dual role of strategic advisors and Change Agents.
It is also observed that in many organisations Corporate HR team
also acts as Centre of excellence or
specialists (COE). The COE’s act as specialists and responsible for various
activities such as talent management, acquisition, organisational development,
performance management, internal communication, employer branding, competency
development, employee engagement, compensation strategy & HR Analytics.
Strategic Industrial Relations activities combined with tactical
activities such as payroll, employee correspondence, data management,
attendance and time office, legal compliances, Insurance, HRMS, and
implementation of compensation and benefits processes are handled by HR
Operations team or HR Shared Services
Team.
To support and effectively implement initiatives within various
business units, organisations appointed HR
Generalist as HR Business partners. Their role is to understand business,
work closely with line managers, decipher employee needs and execute specific
action plans to facilitate respective business objectives. The HR business
partners act as employee champions and strive to increase employee commitment
and competence through various engagement including performance management,
counselling, training and motivation.
HR Best
Practices - The Shift from Transactional to Strategic
Today’s CEOs and executives maintain that there are three key
components to a successful business:
1) You have to have the right
strategy,
2) You have to have the operations
in place to execute that strategy, and
3) You have to have the best people
in the world to execute those operations.
Being responsible for one-third of a business’ success already
puts HR in a critical role. But it’s not just about finding the best
people—it’s about finding the best people, at the lowest cost, with the lowest
possible attrition and the best possible performance.
Talent
Management
Talent Management and War for Talent is no longer a buzz word. Its
is now part of every HR activity. End-to-end talent management encompasses
three main pillars: recruitment, learning and performance management.
Talent
Acquisition
Almost every business discussions today revolve around People.
Executing strategy in absence of right people in the right positions is
unimaginable. Companies today have realised the importance of workforce
planning and budgeting exercise. Although it’s still evolving, it paves way to
tackle future demand - supply gap for talent and foster the right workforce
optimisation strategies.
Organisations have gradually started erasing entry barriers for
talent by sourcing talent from different industries. In the long run, this
would create domain expertise, talent pipeline, implement best practices, help
diversify organisations into newer territories and accelerate growth.
Employee referral, tie up with strategic consultants, campus placements
and internship opportunities are some of our ongoing initiatives to source
talent. Managers are continuously encouraged to spot talent internally and
externally and they are also trained through the Smart Hire training programme.
Stringent regulations and customer demands have transformed HR process, introduced background verification
and reference checks. Psychometric tests and panel interviews are now mandatory
while selecting key candidates.
Talent
Development
Talent development is getting embedded across all organisations
regardless of size and will eventually become an ongoing rhythm. HR practioners
have designed and developed programmes to motivate and engage key talent with
challenging roles, varied assignments, job rotation and job enrichment.
Learning and Development function has been established in
organisations to design and organise various functional, behavioural,
managerial and leadership trainings. Training on health and safety, leadership
bonding, workshops on strategy are conducted with greater frequency. The
training professionals are now creating bespoke induction, on- boarding,
communication and engagement programmes. There is greater emphasis on promoting
organisational core values, vision, and entrepreneurial spirit so as to create
a congenial environment that binds the entire workforce together.
Competency
and Performance Management
Using technology, organisations have established robust
performance measurement systems based on balance scorecards and other strategic
measurement tools. From a talent management standpoint, employee evaluations
concern two major areas of measurement: performance and potential. Functional
and Technical Competencies are getting defined and refined and competency
framework are getting incorporated to monitor employee performance and
potential in several organisations.
Rewards
and Recognition
Compensation benchmarking studies have helped several
organisations to define their compensation philosophy to reward high
performers, define increments so as to counter inflation, erase disparity and
thereby effectively manage employee costs and benefits. Rewards and Recognition
schemes are getting revamped to motivate and retain employees and more
importantly to boost productivity.
Employee
Engagement
Often companies apply focus and drive towards capital, information
technology, equipment and world class processes, but it is the people who
matter the most. Therefore a stronger emphasis is placed on employee engagement
and organisation development activities.
Several Organisational development initiatives viz; External and
Internal employee satisfaction survey are being conducted on regular basis. In
addition Open house, Skip level meetings, Leadership meetings, HR Connect are
being conducted to capture employee opinions and focus on team building,
improvement in employee morale, motivation and wellbeing. Several companies
have also embarked on wellness programme through which organisation conducted
meditation, doctor on board and health checks programmes for employees.
Employee fun activities and other Sports are avidly organised to
promote work life balance. Loan schemes, CSR activities, initiatives for
ensuring, safe, healthy and secure environment are well appreciated by
employees. Such benevolent approach also helps organisations to cultivate
strong employee relations and promote good industrial harmony.
HR
Technology
HR policies and processes are generally where the function
connects with its internal customer. Many organisations have implemented HRMS
and automated their HR process. With the advent of Big Data & Analytics, HR
in future has to evolve into a more technology-based profession which will
enable HR to globally transform, so as to acutely play strategic role in the
business.
Conclusion
The human resource profession has come a long way since the early
days of Henry Ford and other industrial giants who believed they needed little
more than able bodies to keep production lines running. The transformation
journey has just commenced and it’s a never ending journey.
The success of this journey is dependent on each stakeholder
within HR and business. In our new age of technology and rapid product
innovation, unleashing the minds and creative souls of tomorrow's workforce is
the factor most likely to propel businesses and the HR profession into the
future.
Finally, “It takes all the running you can do to keep
in the same place.”- Lewis Carroll,
Alice Through the Looking Glass
