ABSTRACT
The ‘rules of the game’ for employing, engaging, developing, effectively using and promoting people in your business have changed forever. HR professionals working successfully in this new environment will be those who have made a fundamental transition. No longer will they be seen as ‘plodders’ peddling the latest narrow HR fashion, such as job evaluation, performance-related pay, annual assessments, succession planning, empowerment or engagement. The label of simple administrators of people issues – and difficult situations – will be dead. A pattern has grown up over recent years, in which HR is seen as having one over-riding goal, and that is defensive – the avoidance of industrial tribunals. As one HR executive put it, rather succinctly, ‛My job is to keep the CEO out of court!’. HR is at a crossroads – it crucially now needs to work out how it can add serious value to the business. The real HR professionals will become the people resource designers, implementation planners and maintenance engineers of real ‘high performance workplaces’.
