Wednesday, February 01, 2006

The Ever Changing Role of HR

The line it is drawn ,The curse it is cast ,The slow one now, Will later be fast ,As the present now Will later be past, The order is Rapidly fadin'.And the first one now will later be last, For the times they are a-changin'.

These lines of my favourite Bob Dylan Song are also being sung by HR professionals all over by in a different tune. Business world latest edition has an article on “the changing role of HR canvas”. It talks about the transition of HR from talent retainer to talent nurturer and an instrument in building a culture of sensitive and responsive organisation.From business partner to strategic partner HR in Indian organisation have come a long way and here’s a brief summary of the article.

On what makes companies great place to work

Little wonder many of the HR heads from companies in the Top 25 are devoting their time on understanding how swiftly the workplace is evolving and, indeed, what tomorrow’s workplace could look like. Today, the difference between a great workplace and a not-so-great one may lie in the mere fact that the former has a relatively better understanding of the problems. And is attempting to tackle them in an equitable manner, even though the solutions aren’t perfect.

On employee’s new expectations from Corporates

Employees want to feel good about the organisations they work for. In other words, working on community development projects is not seen as wasting company time or being in conflict with everyday corporate objectives, but more as a joint effort between the company and the employee. In fact, many of the activities mentioned are done on company time.

On CSR and future drivers for HR initiatives

Sridhar, general manager (HR), ITC, says that CSR can work only if the more standard HR practices in a company are in place. “If there are too many issues internally, this (CSR) cannot be a substitute,” he says.

There is no gainsaying the fact that concerns such as this will drive HR thinking in the near future. “There was a time when recruiting issues were about educational backgrounds or the value that someone brought to the organisation. But in 2010, the ‘softer’ issues of HR will be the hard drivers,” says Anuradha Purbey, director (HR), Aviva (No. 13 on the list).

The most significant notion to emerge was what tomorrow’s HR manager should be like. GSK’s Dwarakanath argued that keeping in mind how Indian businesses were evolving, the HR manager needed to think very differently. “HR should play the role of a strategic business partner. HR managers need to have knowledge of the market and not just the internal processes. Otherwise, there will be a disconnect between the rest of the business and HR.”

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