From mitigating the impact of job-snatching robots, to preparing for upcoming legislation on the gender pay gap and unravelling the employment implications of Brexit, the work of HR professionals resonates across the workplace.
With high-profile voices such as Professor Stephen Hawking and Bank of England governor Mark Carney warning that technology could swallow 15m jobs, HR managers are backing The Future of Work is Human initiative, led by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). Its purpose? To remind businesses that “uniquely human characteristics such as collaboration and innovation” are needed to navigate economic and global uncertainty.
HR managers are the gatekeepers of employers’ policies and reputation – from April they must publish discrepancies in male and female pay at companies with more than 250 employees. But they also have a big say in job satisfaction. The HR strategy, and how consistently it is implemented, “shapes the level and form of psychological attachment” employees have to their employer, says Professor Rosalind Searle, an expert in organisational trust and HR processes at Coventry University.
HR is demanding, having expanded from welfare and absence responsibilities to include employment law, strategies for diversity and inclusion, and organisational development.
HR managers have a lot on their minds, as The CIPD’s HR Outlook 2016 survey showed. More than a third of respondents said concerns such as how to develop corporate leaders, or how to find and keep a talented workforce “keep them awake at night”.
Yet hopes and aspirations remain high. The CIPD, which was founded in 1913 as the Welfare Workers’ Association with 34 members – it now has 140,000 worldwide – declares it is “championing better work and working lives”. Its chief executive, Peter Cheese, enthuses about the impact of HR managers. “They are there to understand the workforce, the people side of the organisation,” he says, while also “talking the language of business”.
In fact the words “human resources” do not reflect their responsibilities, or their ambition to make work meaningful, says Sharon Olivier, HR programme director at the business school Ashridge.
“Better words would be: ‘Unleashing human potential,’” she says.
