Summary

The role of HR has changed significantly in recent years, and no doubt will continue to change as HR continues to develop the role of strategic business partner. The new mandate for HR in high-performance organisations is to help build the organisation’s core capabilities, such as speed, responsiveness, learning capacity and employee competence. At a practical level this means that HR itself needs to demonstrate leadership. This requires: delivering new and enhanced services, in addition to providing the operational basics; becoming a trusted adviser to their business colleagues; being in tune with the tensions that are getting in the way of performance, as well as contributing to the business agenda. For HR practitioners this means having to invest in developing their own competencies, as well as building in-depth knowledge about the business that they are trying to enhance. Indeed there are some practitioners who believe that HR should not be seen as a career for life, but instead HR professionals need to consider developing their careers in more diverse ways.