Philippa Lamb chairs a high-level discussion on the future of HR, a current important piece of CIPD research that is being headed up by Lee Sears. He will be explaining this ground-breaking project in detail at the CIPD annual conference in Manchester on 17th November 2009. Lee is joined on this podcast by Jackie Orme, Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Gareth Jones, senior practitioner and academic and Kevin Brady, HR Director at BT Operates.
Jackie explains the purpose of the ‘Next Generation’ project and observes that some of the aspects it addresses have arisen as a result of development of the HR Profession Map. Then project leader, Lee Sears, expands on the three themes of the research: organisation agility, trust and balanced risk management.
Kevin, from BT, is asked whether he thinks that HR has been too narrowly focused and too busy with internal issues. Does HR need to stray into other territories, such as finance and marketing? Does Jackie think this is ‘mission creep’?
Gareth Jones is sceptical. Listen to his anecdotes from the music business and why he thinks that curiosity is a valuable attribute, both for businesses and for individuals.
Kevin agrees and argues that the challenge is the lack of commercial awareness at quite senior levels.
Jackie thinks that sustainable performance is key and some difficult questions will have to be answered to attain this goal.
Lee is asked whether HR has been complying with the objectives of managers and board members in recent years. Has HR been asleep on its watch? Philippa wonders whether when the recession is over, we will go back to the long term sustainability or stay with ‘short- termism’. Listen to the replies: some gloomy, some more optimistic.
Gareth shares Jackie’s optimism and has a high opinion of the young people he meets in HR, but goes back to his theme of encouraging curiosity and knowledge of the business and its aims.
Useful links
CIPD has a page giving information on the high-profile research project to find out what the future of the professon will look like.
The HR profession map was mentioned in the podcast.
There's a new CIPD podcast every month. Coming soon..Employee Engagement.. and more..