How HR Has Changed Over The Years

How HR Has Changed Over The Years

The world of work has changed dramatically over the last few decades. Shaped by technology, new working generations entering the employment world and an assortment of macroeconomic factors, today’s working environment looks very different from what it was. And this shift has altered the way that different business functions now operate and the roles and responsibilities within its remit. This applies to HR. From a function that was solely tasked with people-related admin duties, HR has become a respected department that sits in a central position in the business and advises the Board on important strategic decisions and strives to put employees at the heart of it. Deloitte’s 2019 Human Capital Trends study highlighted just how much the function has stepped up over the years and pointed towards some of the responsibilities that HR is now tasked with. 75% of survey respondents suggested that HR plays a pivotal role in sourcing new talent; 66% said that HR is involved in training and development; 65% indicated that HR negotiates different working arrangements while 63% of respondents said that the people function is tasked with implementing compensation and benefits packages for the good of its people. To chart some of the biggest changes in the people function, HR Grapevine spoke to several seasoned HR practitioners to find out.

The shift of the people manager

Anne Kiely, EMEA Lead HR Business Partner at Twitter, told HR Grapevine that throughout her career, she has noticed a wealth of changes, not just in the function itself, but in the way that businesses operate too. She explains: “[When I started my career] HR was just making the change from being the personnel department locked away in an ivory tower where the door was probably locked, and you had to knock to get in. It was just transitioning from that to the old-written model of being in partnership and supporting people to do people management.”

Kiely continues: “So, I think one of the biggest changes I’ve seen in business and often HR is the roles and responsibilities of people managers changing.” While HR has gained many responsibilities, there are some aspects of the function that may have, in some organisations, migrated to other areas of the business. Rather than HR carrying out the role of a people manager itself, the dedicated people function is now tasked with developing line managers to effectively oversee their employees instead. “And it makes perfect sense because our managers know our employees, they know their strengths and their development areas, they know what they love doing and what they leave to the last minute…So, one of the things in my role, and in all of HR’s role, is to support the creation and development of the people manager cohort,” Kiely adds.

Technology
The influence of technology has transformed the workplace. Research from McKinsey found that by digitising data-intensive processes, costs can be cut by up to 90%. So, employers are at an advantage if they implement it. Technology is one of the changes that Twitter’s HR lead points towards. Technology has allowed the function to drop repetitive admin tasks and has freed up time for HR to add value to the business and implement strategies for the good of its people. As a result, tech has strengthened and streamlined many HR operations such as the hiring process. Take social media for example. This online resourcing tactic has allowed HR to target specific qualifications, effectively correspond with candidates and reach a wider pool of candidates – in a way that may be more cost-effective for businesses. Unsurprisingly, recruiters and hiring managers have hired around 73% of their job candidates through social media, according to a Jobvite study.

One firm that has benefitted from using social media to attract and engage with prospective talent is BP. In a previous interview with HR Grapevine the oil provider’s Global Head of Talent Attraction, Vicki Hyland, explained that social media has formed “part of our growing toolkit of ways to engage with future BP talent”. But obviously the hiring process is just one facet of HR that has benefitted from the implementation of technology. “In HR, I’m in a job now that wasn’t really here when I started working in HR…A lot of good is coming from that technology,” Twitter’s Kiely adds.

Data & productivity
Brian Kropp, Chief of HR at global researching and advisory firm Gartner, told HR Grapevine that one of the changes he has noticed in the world of HR is analytics and the quantification of HR. “HR used to be a function that was run by feel [and intuition and] doing process sort of stuff. It was not a function that was run by data and analytics,” he explains. “It has shifted to become a function that is run by data and analytics rather than a function that is run by feel and intuition.”

But this isn’t the only change that Kropp has observed: he says that HR’s overall mission has altered too. “HR has changed from [a function] that manages the workflows of employees and the goal is to minimise risk is to ensure that compliance occurs. But the goal and objective of HR is not just to hire employees [anymore] but to improve the productivity of employees and that is a fundamentally different goal,” he says.

Employee engagement
Competition in the employment market is rife and, to attract and retain top talent, HR has had to change its approach to employee engagement. It is a business imperative. Numerous reports have suggested that engaged employees are more productive and likely invest more into their roles. Yet as today’s workforce increasingly diversifies, and a lot of employees hold conflicting views on what work should look like, HR faces the difficult task of trying to keep a disparate group engaged.

However, according to a Gallup study, engaged employees are 21% more productive than their less engaged co-workers. To support this, some HR teams have introduced employee engagement initiatives that allow staff to write their own job descriptions, create shared knowledge systems and provide practical development opportunities to boost engagement. “The psychological contract that we have with our employees has taken a huge shift in my estimation,” Kiely explains.

Getting a seat at the table – and leveraging it

The Board’s perception of HR has hugely changed over the years too. Now that the function sits in a more central position, it’s about anticipating what HR can do to leverage this. According to Abbe Luersman, CHRO at Ahold Delhaize and member of the CHRO Global Leadership Board convened by Gartner, having a seat at the table is one thing but actually influencing key decision-making is another. Luersman told HR Grapevine at Gartner’s Reimagine HR conference 2019: “It’s clear that relative to the role of HR, it’s no longer a dialogue about having a seat at the table: we’re at the table and it’s [now] a matter of how we leverage it. As a [Gartner] Board, we have collectively talked about how best to evolve and what the key areas of focus should be and has shaped this world-class CHRO model to support that.”

Luersman explains that there are some key change agents that play a role in this. “If you play the role relative to human capital you’re going to make a difference: if you play the role relative to talent strategy that’s great but you really have to take it to the next level when it comes to workforce planning or when you look at driving change and being a change advocate when you look at the evolving market trends, you have to be able to enable that change to happen more effectively. [Driving] culture and purpose within the organisation as HR professionals would play a stronger role there, not just for the employee but for the broader business too,” she adds.

The people function – and HR’s responsibilities within it – has changed hugely over the years and it is likely to change some more going forward. Brexit, skills shortages and other macroeconomic factors are just a few examples of things that will likely influence HR’s role. But, one thing that will stay the same is HR’s importance as a function and the difference it can make to employees. In the wise words of business magnate Steve Wynn (who has created some of Las Vegas’ most notable casinos): “Human resources isn’t a thing we do, it’s the thing that runs our business”.

By – *Sophie Parrott

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