HR Professionals (hr + professional)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Champions, adapters, consultants and synergists: the new change agents in HRM

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 3 2001
Raymond Caldwell
At the centre of many HRM approaches to organisational transformation and culture change is the concept of the personnel or HR professional as change agent. Storey highlighted the emerging significance of the 'changemaker' role in the UK almost a decade ago, and Ulrich has offered a powerful reinterpretation of the personnel function that affirms the significance of the HR change agent in championing competitiveness in many large US corporations. However, while the scope and influence of this role has often been questioned, the variety of forms it takes has not been satisfactorily addressed. The new survey findings and interview evidence from major UK companies presented here indicates that the change agent role has grown in significance and complexity. To partly capture these changes, a new four-fold typology of HR change agent roles is proposed: champions, adapters, consultants and synergists. [source]


Work-life balance: Expatriates reflect the international dimension

GLOBAL BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL EXCELLENCE, Issue 6 2007
Sue Shortland
Studies by ORC Worldwide have found that long hours, travel, and other work-related factors intrude into personal lives and create stress for a significant portion of HR professionals and expatriates around the world. But while HR professionals believe work-life balance policies have benefited their organization and themselves, expatriates believe quite the opposite. Given the cost of expatriate assignments and the potential for work-life imbalance to erode employee commitment, organizations can do more to communicate and support work-life practices outside their home country, and to better prepare the expatriate and family for life in their new location. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


One size does not fit all: Managing IT employees' employment arrangements

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2007
Jayesh Prasad
As alternative employment arrangements proliferate within the information technology (IT) function, it becomes increasingly important to understand the impact of these arrangements on IT employees. A prevalent notion in the IT literature is that these employees are homogeneous in their work values and that they prefer similar employment arrangements. Given the inefficiency of designing individual employment programs, we advocate a middle ground between the two extremes of individualized employment arrangements and "one size fits all." We conducted two studies. The first study developed an individual's work values profile as a psychological construct. It used a national sample of IT employees to validate a simple, heuristic procedure that was successful in classifying about 80% of the sample into three work values profiles. The second study demonstrated the use of work values profiles for understanding how employment arrangements differentially influence employee satisfaction. It applied the validated procedure to a single organization in order to demonstrate the general applicability of the procedure and to show that it provides researchers and HR professionals with better insights than the assumption that all IT employees are alike. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


The importance of the employee perspective in the competency development of human resource professionals

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2006
Mary E. Graham
Recent specification of HR competencies has the potential to influence the professional development of all HR practitioners. It is possible, however, to master the competencies and still underperform. This disconnect may occur because current competency work reflects the perspective of top management clients of human resources to the neglect of the employee perspective. In addition, competencies have become linked so tightly to firm outcomes that normative influences in competency development are lost. To think through these issues, we examine the credibility competency for HR professionals (Ulrich & Brockbank, 2005). Focus groups confirm that credibility dimensions vary across stakeholders, with employees emphasizing trust, management emphasizing expertise and effective relationships, and top management emphasizing the achievement of results. We conclude that more broadly defined competencies for HR professionals are necessary. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


When executives successfully influence peers: The role of target assessment, preparation, and tactics

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2005
Harvey G. Enns
We examined 62 lateral influence episodes to more fully understand the process used by executives to gain the support of peers for new initiatives. Behavioral complexity theories (cf. Zaccaro, 2001) were used to formulate the research questions related to this study and interpret the results. Interestingly, target assessment factors were connected to certain preparation efforts and the use of specific influence tactics. Executives' preparation efforts, however, were not associated with influence tactic use. Implications for HR professionals and directions for research are discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


HR's new ROI: Return on intangibles

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2005
Dave Ulrich
A new human resource ROI has been identified: return on intangibles. Intangibles represent the hidden value of a firm and are becoming an increasingly important portion of a firm's total market capitalization. Six actions that HR professionals can take to create sustainable intangible value are presented in great detail. The emerging focus on intangibles opens the way for HR professionals to more readily link their work to shareholder value. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


Preparing the HR profession for technology and information work

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Issue 2-3 2004
Paul S. Hempel
Technology and human resource management have broad influences upon each other. Technology not only changes the administration of human resources (HR), which is the domain of e-HR, but also changes organizations and work. HR professionals must be able to adopt technologies that allow the reengineering of the HR function, be prepared to support organizational and work-design changes enabled by technology, and be able to support the proper managerial climate for innovative and knowledge-based organizations. An examination of HR professional degree programs shows that traditional HR education has poorly prepared the HR profession for these challenges. To address this shortfall, HR education must be revised to provide a greater focus on technological issues, and HR educators must acquire the skills needed to teach these courses. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


Private equity and HRM in the British business system

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 3 2007
Ian Clark
Who owns the firm? Do changes in owner matter? Will change affect the operational and strategic role of the HR function? For some, the answer will be no precisely because mergers and acquisitions, takeovers, buyouts and privatisations are central activities for a British-based business where short-term value for shareholders and financial engineering are key management objectives that structure and inform the work of HR professionals. For other readers, the answer may well be yes; ownership and owner strategies do matter, particularly if a firm is acquired by a relatively new actor in the market for corporate control , the private equity firm. [source]


How HR professionals rate ,continuing professional development'

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 3 2005
Andrew Rothwell
This article describes a research project undertaken with the co-operation of the UK's Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire branch, to investigate members' attitudes to and engagement with ,continuing professional development'(CPD), and how these correlated with a range of other variables and demographic characteristics. Women held more positive attitudes to the value of CPD than men. The majority of the most popular updating strategies were informal and organisationally located, with less emphasis on courses and qualifications. The most powerful predictor of the perceived value of CPD was professional commitment, while other attitudinal and demographic variables had weaker associations than expected. Valuing CPD did not necessarily translate into participating in it. Implications of this research include guidance for professional institutes on what CPD professionals engage in and why, and what influences this. [source]


The implications of meta-qualities for HR roles

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 4 2004
Finian Buckley
A great deal has been written about the types of competencies that HR managers need. However, there is little known about how these might be acquired and which ones prove most valuable in carrying out HR tasks. This article provides insights into this issue from a study carried out in Ireland. The study examined HR managers' perceptions of the ways in which their competencies changed over the timespan of a management education process and the ways that they utilised these competencies within their work situations. The study suggests that the acquisition and development of ,meta-qualities'(Pedler et al, 1994) can be important to HR professionals in managing the complexity and ambiguity in their roles. [source]


Reasons for Being Selective When Choosing Personnel Selection Procedures

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SELECTION AND ASSESSMENT, Issue 1 2010
Cornelius J. König
The scientist,practitioner gap in personnel selection is large. Thus, it is important to gain a better understanding of the reasons that make organizations use or not use certain selection procedures. Based on institutional theory, we predicted that six variables should determine the use of selection procedures: the procedures' diffusion in the field, legal problems associated with the procedures, applicant reactions to the procedures, their usefulness for organizational self-promotion, their predictive validity, and the costs involved. To test these predictions, 506 HR professionals from the German-speaking part of Switzerland filled out an online survey on the selection procedures used in their organizations. Respondents also evaluated five procedures (semi-structured interviews, ability tests, personality tests, assessment centers, and graphology) on the six predictor variables. Multilevel logistic regression was used to analyze the data. The results revealed that the highest odd ratios belonged to the factors applicant reactions, costs, and diffusion. Lower (but significant) odds ratios belonged to the factors predictive validity, organizational self-promotion, and perceived legality. [source]