David Ulrich and his colleagues have released the results of a new Human Resource Competency Study (HRCS) to find out what the skills for high-achieving HR professionals should develop. The study came out with six core competencies that the HR professionals should focus on developing on.
Credible Activist: An HR should be able to come with expert recommendations so that the professional is considered both an activist and credible. One without the other is not desired and sometimes dangerous. This skill is the most important and permeates all other actions.
Cultural Steward: Due to other pressures, the CEOs expect the HR professional to own and manage organization culture. This is an important skill that is expected of an HR professional in the changing circumstances.
Talent Manager/Organizational Designer: Managing talent or the processes for managing the entry and progression of individuals in a company coupled with the design of the policies and procedures of the organization ensures that both get equal importance and both support each other. An HR professional is expected to have the skill to balance both disciplines.
Strategy Architect: An HR professional has to be able to identify the business trends and their impact. They should be able to anticipate the possible roadblocks as well as any opportunities available so that they can help the business develop differentiators.
Business Ally: An HR professional has to be business literate so that they can understand the business, the strategic issues, and the financials.
Operational executor: This is the competency required for conducting the day-to-day activities such as drafting and operationalizing the policies and other traditional or legacy HR functions. Excelling at other skills and not paying enough attention is a mistake most HR professionals do.
Spotlight on human resource management
James W. Wimbush has surveyed academic journals to find out the key findings in the areas of human resources practices.
Recruitment: Out of the factors that affect recruitment such as early recruitment practices, corporate advertising, and firm reputation, he found that corporate advertising has the most effect. The way companies manage their web sites and how they conduct their interviews is also important. The other factor affecting staffing was the environmental and contextual factors so that top management hires can happen from other companies when the board contains members from other companies. Due to the cultural distance, initially multinationals employ expatriate (parent company’s) nationals but this tendency reduces with the passage of time. Another finding was that sex and race bias does not exist predominantly as the recruiters many have been trained and also the prospective candidates preferred methods with predictive and face validity more than other methods. They also found that the added efficiency of web-based selection is better for companies.
Compensation: The study showed that higher performance was associated with higher pay, but the relation was not linear. It was rather curvilinear. It was also found that an integrative approach to compensation decisions was a better approach.
Training: Tuition reimbursement and reimbursements of certification fees had a positive effect on employee turnover. The tuition reimbursement resulted in a significant reduction of turnover while the employee is taking the course and since it is long enough, the expense is justified.
Human resource practices: There is a significant correlation between the HR practices and work climate (such as professional development, overtime, compensation) and organization’s performance (such as achievement of targets, staff retention, and customer satisfaction, and clerical accuracy).
Conclusions:
The first article “New Competencies for HR”, was studied due to its focus on the skills required for high-performing HR professionals. The second article “Spotlight on human resources management” was selected for its focus on some key areas of the HR functions and their effects on the organization’s performance. The findings of the two articles show that HR practices can have a positive effect on the organization’s performance.
Works Cited
AuthorLastName, FirstName. Title of the Book Being Referenced. City Name: Name of Publisher, Year. Type of Medium (e.g. Print).
