NEXT GENERATION HR - CIPD

NEXT GENE
One of our interviewees had recently worked in this industry. How did HR play its role in
building such a model?
‘We decided, given the shortage of surgeons in India, to hire expat Indians from overseas. To
attract them we sold a vision. Come back and be part of building a new India. … Work for
us and you’ll be able to help and cure so many more people a week than you can in Europe
or America. And because of the vision doctors come back to India – to work far longer hours
and for much less money than they did before.… We were brave enough to think bigger
than anyone else and passionate enough to get others to back our vision.’
This kind of thinking is about tearing up the rulebook. There is no orthodoxy in sight, just a
big vision and the confidence to go for it. And yet it is just one of many remarkable stories
we heard over the last six months in what, for us, has been a very different research project.
We are left convinced that, at its best, in pockets there is an emerging ‘Asian’ brand of HR
that focuses HR onto the unique challenges of operating in a high-growth region (Figure 2).
Figure 2: The growth option
Developing
or emergent
profession
Implement
international
best practice
The growth
option
There is a choice here for the function in many Asian countries. Stand back, look at what is
working and develop an approach to HR that learns from the Western gurus but that blends
it with the best of growth-based Asian practice. Or only adopt the mantras, structures and
ideas that are becoming global orthodoxy.
We hope it chooses the former.
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NEXT GENERATION HR