A New Mandate for Human Resources

Dave Ulrich, a notable professor of University of Michigan and most influential personality in Human
Resource (HR), believes that achieving a high level of organizational excellence must be the work of HR.
HR is the only component of any organization that enrich the organization's value to customers,
investors and employees. In this article he asks whether we should do away with HR, justifying this by
referring to the serious and widespread doubts about HR's contribution to organizational performance.
Here, he discusses different challenges that require HR to play the role of leaders and meet the
challenges. Likewise, he also put lights on the new roles of HR and four different changes required in
HR management.

The author points out five different business challenges namely globalization, profitability through
growth, technology, intellectual capital, and change. The author has rightly pointed out these boiling
issues which require competent human resources to face the challenges. With rapid expansion of
global market, organizations require human resources who have ability to learn, collaborate and
manage diversity, complexity and ambiguity. Likewise, companies should be more focused on profit
through revenue growth which requires market growth, diversification, new product development and
sometimes strategic movement like mergers, acquisitions and joint venture. With a constant
movement of massive amounts of information, managers need to figure out how to make best use of
new technology and learn to leverage information for business results. Similarly, an organization also
faces the challenge of attracting, developing and retaining talented individuals. Finally, organizations
need to cope with the constant change in the environment and thrive into a never ending state of
transformation. The author has rightly pointed out five business challenges that require new mandate
for HR. These challenges are true in the industrialized and developed countries, however, in developing
and nascent industrialized countries there are some more challenges that HR need to cater on. These
challenges include brain drain, which is reducing the level of intellectual capital, workplace diversity
such as age, culture, ethnicity, geographical location, educational background, income and work
experience. Such challenges also play a vital role in uplifting the role of HR in organizational setting,
which the author has not stressed on.
The author stresses that because of these five different hurdles, organization must develop their
competitiveness and capabilities such as speed, responsiveness, agility, learning capacity and
competence. To develop these capabilities, a new set of HR roles should be emphasized. The author
has prescribed four different roles of HR managers. These roles include a) involvement of HR in line
with senior executives and senior management in the strategy formulation and implementation, b)
becoming an administrative expert and not only improve the efficiency of their own function but also
of the entire organization by reducing the cost while maintaining the quality, c) HR professionals
should ensure that the employees feel committed to the organization and contribute fully i.e.
becoming an employee champion, and d) become a change agent, shaping processes and culture to
build the organization's capacity to embrace and capitalize on change.

The author really has put forward some interesting new roles for HR to perform to develop the
competitiveness and capabilities. However, it is really difficult to integrate HR with strategy
formulation as senior executives may not value the role of HR much. Even if they involve HR, their
suggestions may not be actually used for strategy formulation and implementation. Furthermore, here
the author assumes that HR has the capability and educational expertise to formulate and define
complex organizational architecture which may not be the case in every organization. Moreover, the
author argues that HR should be held responsible for conducting an organizational audit. This may
sometime create a fear among HR not to perform such a complex job as it may prove detrimental to
them. The second role of HR as an administrative expert is really interesting and applicable in most of
the organization. However, the role of HR as an employee champion may not be a new concept as HR
department are supposed to represent the voice of employee to management and their discussions.
The author may be stressing on the fact that HR should be more often try to understand the
sentiments of employees, be responsible for employees action and represent employees as well. Now,
the forth role as mentioned by the author as a change agent is a completely new concept. Traditional
HR concept does not stress on capitalizing on change. Change being a major business challenge, the
author has rightly identified the new role of change agent which is appreciable.

The author also proposes some drastic changes in how an HR professional thinks and behaves the
expectation of senior executives from HR and their behavior towards the HR. The author has proposed
four changes on this matter. Firstly, senior managers should communicate that they believe typical HR
"soft stuffs" are critical to business success. Secondly, senior managers should explicitly define what
they expect from HR and then track, measure, and reward performance. Thirdly, senior managers
should look out for innovative HR practices which should work in the company’s unique competitive
situation. Finally, HR should improve the quality of HR staff itself. A higher quality of HR professional
must be found who knows the business, theories and practices of HR, can manage change and culture,
and have personal credibility.

In a nut shell, author has successfully issued a new mandate for human resources and has portrayed
that HR should not be defined not by what it does but what it delivers. Author has first put light on the
current problems and challenges that is reinforcing HR to evolve, proposed different roles and
discussed some immediate changes required for sustainable HR roles. Interestingly, the author has
identified that HR professionals need to play various roles in order to gain credibility for themselves
and the HR function: it isn't simply a question of moving from the operational to the strategic
orientation. The reality is that HR roles are multiple, changing and complex, in involving them in
policing and partnering, and delivering operational and making strategic contributions.

Submitted By: Biwesh Neupane

10106, MBA Fall 2010 Term II

Kathmandu University School of Management

Pinchetole, Lalitpur, Nepal