The Work Foundation today announced the start of a one and a half year research programme looking into the future of human resources.
The programme aims to challenge received wisdom around HR and ask: what is it for, whom does it serve, what is its outcome and how should it be configured to deliver it better.
Marianne Huggett, associate director at The Work Foundation, stresses that The Work Foundation are "neither believers in nor enemies of the HR profession, preferring at this stage to remain agnostic."
The programme will look at HR in relation to wider organisational contexts such as leadership and line management, "rather than existing in a bubble all on its own as sometimes seems to be the case."
She adds: "We fear the function has become remote from issues of fairness and the quality of working life - for example expecting engagement without a willingness to think about good work.
"We want to shift the debate about HR to look forensically at outcomes. What is it that HR produces?"
As Huggett points out, this is a good time to ask provocative questions and deliver robust answers in a way that will help HR navigate the downturn and prepare for the recovery.
A final report will be issued in the autumn of 2010, but in the meantime Personnel Today will bring you exclusive updates on the research as it progresses. The first wave of research findings will be out next month, so watch this space.
And we want your views on this - is it time for HR to reassess its role? What do you think is the future of HR?
Comments (2)
Thank you The Work Foundation! I will be watching the progression and final outcome with great interest. What does HR produce? Has it been the case that HR has hidden behind the intangibility of people management? I have always though this to be an excuse - direct impact is sometimes difficult to measure we can measure precieved indirect benefits and absolutes like reductions in employee turnover, absence, recruitment costs etc.
Also we hide behind the need for process and procedures, generally driven by legislation, but occasionally over engineered for political correctness and to feel that HR controls the process rather than management?
Posted by Suzie Bogle | April 3, 2009 11:41 AM
Posted on April 3, 2009 11:41
Yes, it's a very important debate and one that needs framing out straight away further than the question of outputs and right into the nature of intent.
Let me explain:- There is all this talk of humans and resources and of a foundation being about work. It is very important that this debate does not centre only on functionalist, coporatised goals.
Humanism seems to be a dirty word around the social sciences these days (and that includes all shades of Management Science) but surely we must finally start to take on board that it can't just be a question of corporate goals OR personal development/fulfilment and that the two must go hand in hand and, indeed, are mutually accentuating and sustaining.
In our own corporate culture work we go so far as to put a recurring cycle of Community, Contribution & Recognition at the heart of all things. Let's hope that this research doesn't lose sight of the people and fundamental questions of what it is that we want to our organisations to accomplish and to provide.
Posted by Malcolm Evans | April 5, 2009 1:43 PM
Posted on April 5, 2009 13:43