HR on the Offensive

Description

The HR profession is at a tipping point. Unprecedented turbulence, driven by tech innovation, hyper-competitiveness and market disruption, has created levels of organisational stress that demand a new focus on the human side of business.  The opportunity for HR to take the lead is huge, but there remains a question over whether HR professionals have the capability, focus and mindset to transform themselves from being a support function to the long-term driver of competitive advantage.

We have spent six months researching the future of HR, informed by in depth interviews with 22 leading HR directors and supported by Kevin Green, former HR Director at Royal Mail Group and Chief Executive of the REC UK.  Our goals were to:

• Explore the capabilities that HR needs going forward
• Understand what may be inhibiting progress
• Identify what could enable HR to achieve the desired change.

We also wanted to provide HR leaders with guidance on what to focus on and how to manage the change, in the context of increasingly busy and challenging work environments.

The title of the campaign makes our intent clear: we are challenging HR to ‘go on the offensive’; to lead from the front, shape organisational strategy and drive business change.