CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW 27
3.7 The Emerging Role and Future of the Human Resources Department
As has been discussed, organisations in the modern era exist in a constant state of learning, adapting and changing in order to remain flexible, competitive, excellent entities in the marketplace. The same is true for the subsystems which make up the organisation. In this
regard the face of Human Resource departments as we know them is changing rapidly.
Human Resource practitioners are having to continuously appraise their activities to ensure that they are achieving both the results required of them and the results that they, as a department, wish to achieve. The nature of the workplace today has caused a shift in the focus of Human Resource departments in many areas.
~ There has been a renewed focus on the importance of quality of work life. In order to remain successful, organisations have in the past concentrated more on providing work and achieving organisational efficiency rather than on the quality of the work life and taking care of their employees. Now, however, there has been a shift towards improving the conditions of employment for employees in order to create a culture that will
encourage employee commitment.
~ Organisations have seen the need and almost 'emergency' for skills in the workplace. In South African organisations, Human Resource departments have had to respond to the problem of developing the skills and competencies that are needed in order to remain competitive as well as providing job enrichment for employees.
~ With the vast number of people of different cultures, races, genders and even nationalities joining South African organisations, Human Resource departments need to be able to
adapt and develop their practices and procedures to manage this diversity.
(Torrington & Hall, 1991 )
It should also be noted that more and more, the personnel management function is being performed by individuals in all levels of the organisation, especially at line management level. "All managers, including the personnel manager, have highly important roles in the effective utilisation of human resources" (French,1978: 562). The Human Resources
department is simply the department that spends a higher percentage of its time dealing with Human Resources than any other part of the organisation. It is important to involve the entire organisation in human resource matters because Human Resource policies, procedures and practices extend throughout the organisation and effect all subdivisions.
Recently, a new approach to Human Resources has been documented by David Ulrich(1998).
The new role of Human Resource professionals has begun to emerge and there has been a radical move away from Human Resources simply being the watchdog and 'policy police'. Human Resources, whose activities have often been disconnected from the real work of the organisation, are now becoming actively involved in helping organisations to better serve their customers and shareholders. Human Resource practitioners can now help the
organisation to achieve excellence through forming partnerships with senior and line
managers towards carrying out the organisation's business strategy; becoming a champion for the employees through representing their concerns and giving them a voice and working towards improving the contribution of employees through encouraging commitment and delivery of results. Ulrich (1998) proposes that many employees do not feel valued by the organisation so they are reluctant to share ideas or work harder than the minimum. Human Resources needs to step in here and train line managers to see the importance of employee morale and how they can best achieve it. This ensures that employees will feel more committed to the organisation and will contribute fully. Ulrich sees the new role of Human Resource practitioners as being the voice of employees; representing employees views to both management and in the policy decision making process. This role of Human Resources proposed by Ulrich (1998) has, however, been disputed by many of the subjects involved in this research study but this will be discussed further in the analysis of the results.
Finally, Human Resource practitioners can work towards achieving organisational excellence through becoming an "agent of transformation" (Ulrich,1998: 29), in other words, shaping the organisation's culture and processes to improve its capacity for change and development.
To fulfil this role, the Human Resource department should be the first to be flexible and adaptive to forces of change impacting on it.
Human Resource practitioners, therefore, play the important role of change agents. They are involved in facilitating the change process through involving the right people at the right time and ensuring that the key decision makers are involved in the process. The question can be posed, however: who are the key decision makers and who decides who they are? Human Resource practitioners also need to set the example in their own departments through redesigning their systems and procedures to be aligned with the change and ensuring that their department fully reflects the practices that they are recommending to other departments.
F or example, if they are encouraging the awareness of diversity in the organisation, then diversity should be reflected in the Human Resources department.
Ulrich (1998) also shifts the focus of Human Resources away from being focused on
activities, what people do, towards results, the results of doing Human Resource practices. It is also important to look at how those results are achieved. This is primarily through Human Resource capabilities which involve the skills, abilities, expertise and other competencies of individuals. Capabilities are the organisation's ability to reach its goals through using its resources. Capabilities are the transition from mission, vision, strategy and values to action.
(Ulrich, 1998) This new Human Resource focus on results and the achievement of these