The Changing Landscape of HR
To most people, the HR department is seen as the backend of the organisation, taking a passive role and the least enticing area to work in. However, the human resources landscape has evolved, and the changing needs of companies are driving the evolution into the 21st century.
Moving beyond the brick and mortar formula of hiring and firing, human resources now encompasses creating employee experiences; they want to enable, empower and engage people. They work closely with management to understand the business needs of the organisation to help unlock human potential and harness talents.They are focused on employee outputs and want to create a dynamic and evolving workforce, while striving to be a profit-enabling unit.
Gone are the days of human resources acting as the ‘law enforcers’ for the organisation, doling out ‘punishments’ to errant employees and scaring new employees with the do’s and don’ts from the employee handbook or intranet. Human resource representatives are now looked up to as professionals armed with knowledge and people skills, mentors, coaches and even leaders in their field. They are the “go-to” people for career coaching, employee rights and benefits, and even counselling for relevance.
Human resources in the past used to not rely on technology much to meet its evolving needs but with the availability of new tools like big data and analytics now, the urgency to embrace these tools and use them to measure data and trends for better strategizing and overall improvement in employee experiences.
No longer a “bench-warmer” in the organisation, human resources has moved on to playing a central role in companies. It is more involved than ever in every division in the organisation and its position is key to creating a more dynamic and cohesive environment to work in.
Check out the Human Resource Managaement courses here.
