NHRD Journal - National HRD Network

management and the labor leaders to ensure
that the labour leaders do not start abusing their
new found power. Quite often this also
entailed the HR professional to wield the stick
to enforce discipline at the workplace. This often
resulted in his being viewed as biased towards
management. The fact that the HR person was
in the payroll of the company definitely added
to the dilution of the perception regarding the
neutrality of his stance.
In an attempt to wean away the employees from
the clutches of the trade unions the
management charged the HR professional with
the task of introducing newer and more
appealing activities/benefits to keep the
employees motivated and focussed. Over a
period of time the various HR activities that
were initiated called for a large amount of
administrative focus in managing them
efficiently. This then started taking centre stage
in the life of the HR professional.
With growing competition in the market place
and easy access to technology and finance the
business leaders started realising the
importance of the People edge to business
success and started expecting the HR
professional to focus on attracting the right
quality people and developing the appropriate
skills amongst the existing people.
The growing interest in training and
development, learning center, quality circles
are outcomes of this phase.
The realization that the workplace culture
impacts almost all of the people issues has
started to bring attention to both the tangibles
and intangibles, the hardware and the
software, the furniture and the philosophy, the
work and the values, the rewards and the
recognition. Today there are many examples
of Culture related work and thanks to
involvement of experienced OD practitioners/
consultants these are no longer isolated
initiatives but more comprehensive in their
approach, leveraging all aspects of HR. TPM,
open offices, vision workshops, instant and
visible recognition schemes, objective
performance management process and
performance linked rewards.
Many of the leading thinkers and writers in
the area of HR have exhorted the need to get
more strategic in our approach and one of the
key levers of Strategic HR is leadership. The
high impact of Leadership on talent
management, organization culture, and
eventual business performance has clearly
shifted the focus on developing leadership
capabilities within the organization as a key
enabler of success. A large number of HR
professionals have begun to discuss leadership
development and some have indeed started to
influence and contribute to development of
leadership within their organizations.
As the HR professional found the demands on
his contribution changing he sought to build
his own capability to meet the changing
demands. Therefore from the stage of becoming
familiar with the regulatory guidelines to be
able to provide all facilities that were expected
at the place of work he moved to building his
capability to negotiate successfully with the
trade union leaders. He also had to develop
his knowledge of the jurisprudence so that he
could enforce discipline within the bounds of
law. He then started becoming creative in the
design of benefits and provision of facilities
which made the employees happy and
motivated. The big step was in understanding
of human psychology so that she could predict
the effect of her initiatives and activities on
people and their consequent behavior. (please
note that shift in the gender of the HR
professional at this stage of evolution! ). More
recently the understanding of business and
ability to contribute more directly to business
performance has become key to being more
strategic in their approach.
Looking Ahead
In many of the organizations belonging to the
new horizon segment the HR practice is being
November 2007 NHRD Journal 93