The Future of Human Resources

“HR is dead. Long live HR”(article). This pretty much sums up the article. This intent of this article was to demonstrate the now changing of the HR profession. HR departments across organizations are receiving face-lifts in terms of what they do and their involvement in the firm. The future of the HR professional requires that modern day HR people be more proactive, as opposed too reactive. David Ulrich says, “HR departments will be smaller. In its place will rise leaner, refocused carde of professionals who put the business first and foremost”(article). One of HR’s new functions will consist of being a strategic partner of the firm. They must know the company’s direction and goals, so that they may be able to properly align the right human capital with these objectives. This transformation of the HR world will require HR professional to gain new skills and deviate from the old way of doing things. Companies are shifting towards automating and outsourcing many administrative functions of HR.

Some of the new roles that HR professionals will have to take in this new environment are:

CFO of HR: this role requires an individual to analyze the cost effectiveness of HR practices. They must be able to translate how their functions contribute to the bottom line.

Internal Consultant: this person will have to align HR functions with the strategies of the firm. They must also encourage line managers to participate in the hiring and training process.

Talent Manager: the responsibilities of this role are to take the data collected from the internal consultant and recruit the right people to help carry out these goals.

Vendor Manager: This person analyzes which functions can be better or more cost-effectively by an outside firm. They are responsible for monitoring the quality and costs of outsourcing.

The Self-Service Leader: this individual coordinates with internal and external technology specialist to develop automated systems for employees to handle such mattes as benefits and pensions.

The major points of this article were the new skills that are required for survival in this new HR world. In order for this transformation to proceed “a fundamental shift in thinking from traditional HR roles”(article).