The Challenging Human Resource Role

The workplace is undergoing dramatic shifts in many fundamental aspects. Global organzations and diverse workforces are combining with technology leaps and cultural shifts to put pressure and opportunity on human resource professionals.

The most significant human resource challenges of the next ten year from a SHRM survey cited:

• recruiting, selecting, retaining and rewarding the best employees
• developing future corporate leaders
• creating a corporate culture that attracts and encourages the best employee performance

The role of the human resource professional in the midst of these workforce shifts and major challenges fall into three categories:

• employee advocate
• manager/supervisor advisor 
• organization (senior management / ownership) defender and shaper

Employee Advocate

The HR role of employee advocate has traditionally been predicated on resisting unionization activity and keeping employees focused on the objectives of the organization by sharing their creative cost cutting / improvement ideas. The change in technology, job reductions, and out-sourcing of the talent management has narrowed this employee advocate role leaving many employees feeling like after-thoughts and numbers. 

The role of employee advocate has become counter-intuitively become even more important against this backdrop as employees have become a competitive advantage for world class organization because other competitive factors are closed sooner by globalization and technology. Appreciative Inquiry as a change model and methodology of approaching the employee's challenges through valuing them as individuals is becoming increasingly beneficial to build individual performance along with team building.

Manager/ Supervisor Advisor

The HR role of manager/supervisor advisor has deteriorated within many organizations because of the need to document discipline, constant criticism of actions taken, and a perception that the HR professional are mechanics going through the motions of rigid policies and practices. The pressure of a diverse workforce and discrimination laws along with the negative organizational consequences to violating procedures have pitted in many cases HR professionals with line management.  

There has never been an important time for the HR professional to be a partner with management and supervision in relating to the organization's employees. Appreciative Inquiry as a change model and methodology of approaching the supervisor/manager's challenges through supporting and partnering with them on employee relation strategies is becoming increasingly beneficial to build individual supervisor/manager performance along with team building.

Organization (senior management / ownership) Defender and Shaper

Hunman Resource professional in many ways have embraced this role of defender against the possibility of discrimination claims and shaper of policies & procedures with a great deal of enthusiasm and a choking success. This embracing of the role of defender and shaper has been exagerated by the out-sourcing of human resource roles making the needs for policies to be spelled out and inflexible greater. Technology and HRIS systems has been a great asset to the modern HR organization with the unintended consequence that the Human Resource professional often is seen as little more than a parrot of policies and procedures where judgement and creativity to maximize the employee and supervisor/manager once ruled the HR profession, 

The use of a relational approach to the Human Resource function using Appreciative Inquiry would re-introduce curiosity and potential to the role to be a defender and shaper of the organization. Looking through the organizational prism of strengths, possibilities, and curisoity will provide much greater potential than limiting rigid policies and procedures.