Why is the HR department playing a more significant role in organizational strategic planning processes today than it did 20 years ago?
Human Resources used to be administrative such as personnel records, regulations, wages, compliance, compensation packages and benefits but now has evolved into needing to understand the work climate in order to recruit, hire and retain talent in order to continue to add value to an organization. Today’s workforce is different today compared to years ago due to technological advances in the workplace. Technology has a big part in having today’s HR departments look nothing like it used to look well over ten years ago. There are systems and programs that can literally automate payroll, streamline onboarding, and help a company determine if their current employees are accessing the right training opportunities. I like to look at HR as the middleman (between the employee and the management or organization) or its own business within the company because HR today is responsible for company culture and happiness of employees. This is key to keeping those employees around for years to come. A happy employee at work reaps bigger rewards for the company overall. If an employee is unhappy then there is no reason to work harder but when employees are happy, there is a lot to gain. Acquiring new skills and a constant learning of new things is imperative to keep the best of the best working for you for years to come and if you have a great HR department, they are there to help. If an employee has a problem with work, who is it that they are told to see? Human Resources. HR is tough and not everyone can walk into a HR job without an education in HR and/or experience like one could over 20 years ago. HR degree holding personnel without HR experience start from the bottom and work their way up after years of being on the job. It just doesn’t happen overnight. HR is always having to drum up new ways today that they would not consider years ago now to retain their current talent. Just today at my job with the federal government, I received an email about discounted tuition with one college and two universities for employees and our dependents for reduced tuition for both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I haven’t seen anything like this in the over four years I’ve been here.
Reference: Noe, R. A., Hollenbeck, J. R., & Gerhart, B. A. (2021). Human Resource Management: Gaining a competitive advantage. McGraw-Hill Education.
