ABSTRACT
Ulrich’s (1997) work on the efforts of the HR profession to become increasingly strategic in its operation has highlighted four main roles that practitioners undertake: administrative expert, employee champion, change agent and strategic business partner. In Australia there have been moves by practitioners away from what they regard as an entrapment in being administrative experts and employee champions towards acquiring the competence and exercising the capacity to have a greater input into business strategy. This is exemplified by the increasing qualifications held by HR practitioners and their reported switch toward a more strategic focus (Fisher et al., 1999). One illustration of such increasing professionalization is the rise (6.8 percent) of the average pay of HR professionals in 2002 compared with 5.6 percent of salary increase of those of other sectors (Human Resources, January 2003).
