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HR PROFESSIONALS NEED TO BREAK FREE FROM CINDERELLA IMAGE AND BECOME HIGH LEVEL BUSINESS PARTNERS
London March 9 th – Launched today at the London Stock Exchange, ‘Transforming HR: Creating Value through People’ by Martin Reddington, Mark Williamson and Mark Withers is a new book that challenges the way HR practitioners engage with their organisations. The authors recognise that for most organisations people are now the primary source of sustainable competitive advantage and provide a ‘how to’ guide to help HR practitioners as well as line managers transform the way human resource management is delivered in organisations. This entails HR practitioners becoming strategic business partners, line managers delivering their people management responsibilities, underpinned by e-HR and new shared services models that deliver transactional and advisory HR support.
I nterviews with senior HR practitioners from companies such as National Grid Transco, Oracle, Royal Bank of Scotland, The London Stock Exchange, Marconi Corporation, ESS Support Services Worldwide, NCH, Nextel, Schlumberger, Cable & Wireless and MBNA enable the reader to learn from the experiences of leading organisations as they have transformed the way they deliver HR. Interviews with these practitioners also enabled the authors to identify the following key challenges that are holding back the HR function from being more strategic.
- HR is perpetually bogged down in administrative tasks
- HR leaders do not have time to think strategically and to add real value
- HR is viewed as an administrative department and is therefore not invited to become involved with senior decision-making
The book takes the reader through the transformation journey: envisioning the new world of HR, making the business case for change, engaging and managing stakeholders and delivering technology, process and capability change. The strength of the book lies in the extensive presentation of practical tools and techniques and the reader is shown how to apply these in different situations. The authors have all been actively engaged in transformational change for many years and liberally share their experiences.
In addition, interviews with senior HR practitioners from companies such as National Grid Transco, Oracle, Royal Bank of Scotland, The London Stock Exchange, Marconi Corporation, ESS Support Services Worldwide , NCH, Nextel, Schlumberger, Cable & Wireless and MBNA enable the reader to learn from the experiences of leading organisations as they have transformed the way they deliver HR.
“To have a future, the HR profession must transform sufficiently to demonstrate that it is creating value through people”, commented co-author Mark Withers, Managing Director of Mightywaters Consulting. “HR transformation needs to integrate technology, process, structure and the people and cultural aspects of change and HR professionals need to develop and deploy the capabilities and know-how to achieve this. This book covers all these issues and is an excellent guide to deliver transformational change no matter where organisations are on their journey.”
Co-author Mark Williamson, Business Consulting Director at Partners for Change added, “This book guides HR through the process of developing a compelling and realisable business case for transformation that wins funding and commitment at the highest level in the organisation. Then the reader is shown how to deliver on that business case through putting business benefits at the core of the HR Transformation solution and then demonstrating and measuring that the benefits promised have been delivered.”
Other issues examined in the book include the role of e-HR, shared services and outsourcing which can enable HR professionals to move into their roles as strategic business partners. The book discusses how to integrate change in process and technology with the wider goal of increasing the capability and contribution of HR professionals and line managers.
“There are very few HR people being groomed for top positions in organisations, which seems crazy when HR is responsible for human capability,” stated co-author Martin Reddington, Managing Director of Martin Reddington Associates. “The new breed of HR professional requires skills in business strategy, HR mastery and technology. Bringing a potent blend of these skills to the table will massively enhance their credibility and influence with managers.”
More information can be obtained from the publisher Reed Elsevier |
