SYNAPSE - 2014
HR is Dead. Long Live HR
- Vinoo Kurian Thomas, HRM 2013-15, XLRI Jamshedpur
Yup, you read that right. HR demi-God Dave
Ulrich’s insightful statement was his way of
saying that “the old HR”—that which emphasizes expertise in transactions and paperwork—“is dying in a sense.” Human resource
management is going through a major transformation. Employers are automating and outsourcing many administrative functions, which
will force many HR professionals to demonstrate new skills and compete for unfamiliar
roles. With every passing season, there is more
and more emphasis on business acumen as a
HR has already
evolved at a meteoric
rate from a personnel
function to a strategic
and influential
department
necessity for the new-age HR professional.
'HR' is less than 30 years old. Given the term
'human resources' was unheard of in 1980, HR
has already evolved at a meteoric rate from a
personnel function to a strategic and influential
department, and it has moved out of its silo
into the business. But if this process is not
managed meticulously, HR could be on the
verge of extinction. Recession in the private
sector has meant that issues such as talent man-
agement, strategic workforce planning and performance management have risen up the priority
lists of executive boards.
What does HR in the future really look like? To
answer this, I will detail four points namely
skills, outsourcing, business partnering and data
& analytics.
Let me illustrate the value of finance in the arsenal of a HR manager. A number cruncher can
apply the metrics to demonstrate the inherent
economic value of HR and to analyze the costeffectiveness of various practices HR proposes or
implements: What is the contribution of certain
employees to the bottom line? How much does
the right training help the company? Which programs do not add value and should be eliminated? For HR to make a lasting impression, it has
to focus on cost. Only when there is an effect on
actual labor cost, can HR claim to have made a
bottom-line impact. By reducing business costs,
HR is directly influencing overtime because there
is better scheduling and people management.
People will always be part of t H\]X][ۋ