As HR roles have changed so have the expectations from business, particularly in the area of developing and retaining top people.
Industrial Psychologist, Lizanne de Jong explains that over the years the role of HR has evolved from personnel administrator to Strategic HR Practitioner who needs to assist business in executing strategy and comply with business needs.
She says there is a growing demand for strong talent management skills and a leadership shortage in South Africa. According to the 2015 Deloitte survey in HR Trends 86% of businesses still cite leadership as one of their biggest challenges.
“In a South African context we can see the lack of leadership in most organisations…” says de Jong. Businesses are struggling to develop people who are ready for leadership. This is a common issue that HR is being asked to resolve.
In a general sense learning and development has become a priority in business. Again Strategic HR will be relied on to identify how employees can be developed to meet the present and future needs of the business.
However, this role is made especially difficult as businesses struggle to sacrifice employees to extensive training programmes in pressurised economic cycles. The pressure is on HR practitioners to find creative ways of developing talent without removing people from their daily business tasks for long periods of time.
Organisational Culture and Employee Engagement were identified as another HR trend. “People are saying that we need to engage our workers in a different way.” Establishing a strong culture with the accompanied values and behaviour is seen as the new capital in organisations. It is left to HR to find ways to provide meaningful work in order to keep employees engaged and retain skilled workers.
As a result of these pressures and expectations HR has to be professional, innovative, strategic, flexible, and able to anticipate the needs of the business.
The “Human Resources for New HR Professionals” training course hosted by the Alusani Skills & Training Network® is designed to help HR professionals manage these demands.
For more insights join the Human Resources for New HR Professionals training course hosted by Alusani Skills & Training Network®. This course is designed to help HR professionals manage these demands.