The New HR Reality – Implications for Development within the HR Profession

(An extended version of an article in the Executive-Grapevine Magazine, February 2007)

HR Ain’t what it Used to Be

Five developments in the past decade have swung the broad HR community towards a far more critical self-questioning, and have led to significant HR capability transformation:

the ‘’business partnership’’ movement which has, in some sectors and industries led to the creation of a ‘’strategically-focused’’ business partner elite, together with the compartmentalization of technical specialists, (ER, Comp and Bens, Recruitment, etc) and typical transaction-based HR elements, (Payroll, etc);

the growth of e-HR, and HR automation;

the centralisation of HR within shared services in some larger organisations;

the prevalence of HR outsourcing, resulting from 1. in particular;

the increased prevalence of HR offshoring to the Far East in particular, linked to outsourcing and e-HR - a more recent trend leading to a range of dramatic predictions about the future (or lack thereof) of the HR discipline as we know it locally.

Along with these five developments, an array of convincing business writers have created an unattractive view of the HR community, including common themes around HR’s inability to accurately measure its organisational value and impact, and HR’s inability to create a truly strategic role for itself – the implications including a number of commoditizing trends above.

The HR Transformation Gap: New Required Competencies vs Old Raw Material

As an ex HR Director who has worked globally; one thing that can be said about the UK HR community, is that it is quick to innovate, and to lead new global trends – including the trends mentioned above. At one level this tendency to innovate (experiment?) means that the benefits of transformation come quicker; at another level it means that more outright failures and dissonance are likely than in most other places, where transformation is slower – and the number of business partnership and outsourcing failures (in particular) are growing.

It feels to me from the many HR people I come into contact with as a consultant, that we have reached a point of dissonance – we have embarked on fundamental change processes within HR, without having complete clarity about how we now need to develop the awareness, expertise, knowledge and aspiration to create a ‘new HR’. This is particularly difficult for a discipline better known for its lack of empowerment than it’s commercial expertise. So, the challenge is a tough one.

A case in point is the all-too-typical example of the HR Manager re-positioned as ‘HR Business Partner’, but clearly lacking the specific skills, knowledge, and in many cases intellect, basic business savvy and motivation to competently carry out the role in a way which leads to both success and credibility within the organisation. A case of supply not matching demand, albeit that the formative thinkers like Ulrich and so on have done a credible job of identifying the requisite competencies. The competencies are new, but as yet, the raw material is by and large the same. New model, new competencies, but old education and (many of the) same faces.

Thinking about New Careers within HR

Before entering consultancy, my career development in HR included time at different stages of my career in L&D, OD, Generalist HR, ER, Management Development, Recruitment, and International Compensation and Benefits. This felt like a relatively normal development process for a person developing a broad and reasonably deep career within HR. At all stages of my career I viewed myself as an agent of organisational transformation, and a strategic advisor (partner?) to my organisation, and coach to my manager colleagues – albeit that my views may have been naive.

Following my MBA, which one of my employers encouraged me to take up, my sense of my ability to directly impact the commercial success of my organisation was enhanced – principally as I was now more commercially empowered. At no stage of my career though did I feel that I was either strictly a specialist, or that my advisory role was specifically circumscribed within a specific framework. This was a useful, flexible and empowering place to be as an HR professional.

Within the current HR landscape though; it feels that many of the career development options I enjoyed, are narrowed – for example, how do specialist HR practitioners make a logical move into a strategically-focused business partnership role, without the opportunity to ‘learn’ this role via a seamless experience-gaining process that crosses the specialist/business partner barrier ?

Similarly, ‘where to’ for the early-career HR transactional person operating as part of an outsourced HR service? Depth of learning within a narrow transactional belt creates a low value-add specialist – both from a delivery and career growth perspective – and it is difficult to spot how lateral learning, empowerment and personal career progression within HR happens easily within this scenario.

Whereas in the past, HR career progression opportunities were quite flexible for those who wanted to broaden and deepen their experience, (very often those who progressed fastest to true strategic partnership roles), the new more structured reality means that old ways of thinking about HR careers are outdated, and must change.

Conclusion: Narrowing the Gaps

Whilst the likes of the CIPD and SHRM are certainly encouraging a new commercial awareness amongst their new and existing members, something far more fundamental is required:

Education ahead of a career in HR needs to change to raise the barriers to entry within a community with traditionally low entry barriers – how this is structured should better ‘weed out’ those who are truly not likely to ‘get it’ at the strategic level;
Far more fundamental commercial questions need to be asked of new entrants to the field to test their understanding of business drivers and how their activities can impact these;
HR community development needs to take into account its role as a steward of competitive thinking, and HR teams should be familiarized with this role;
Current senior HR teams should be encouraged to take up broadly ‘business-focused’ vs strictly ‘HR-focused’ vocational learning, eg. encouraging participation in MBA or mini-MBA programmes vs the still prevalent inward-looking Masters-in-HR-type programmes;
Senior HR professionals and teams should receive structured and regular coaching – both to help them to manage transition, but also to expose them directly to a more expansive approach to thinking about the value of their role – what adds value and what doesn’t is often difficult to see without external coaching guidance.

Having reached a point of dissonance we have to put in structured effort at a number of levels (education, recruitment, training, career opportunities, coaching…) which enhance expertise, knowledge, commercial awareness, commercial effectiveness and aspiration to create a ‘new HR’.

Unlike many writers, our view is that there is indeed a clear and business-critical role for an ‘’aware and capable’’ HR profession, able to develop a clearly value-adding role which rides and addresses regular organisational cycle changes, and ever-changing trends.

More on Clayton Glen:

Clayton Glen is Commercial Director with HDA (www.hda.co.uk), a privately-owned human capital consultancy, based in London, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Swindon and Bournemouth. He has accountability for all commercial activity across the company's business streams.

Clayton has held senior HR and commercial roles in the UK, the USA, continental Europe and in Southern Africa; in a range of industries, including chemicals/fmcg, automotive, e-commerce consulting and mobile technology. He has an MBA from the University of Wales. Prior to joining HDA, he was Head of HR & Finance with a venture capital funded mobile technology start-up (www.shazam.com), where he had accountability for building an international team and infrastructure in London and the USA.