THE HR PRACTITIONER AS CHANGE AGENT

IMPSA 30TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Bruno Bruniquel

29 October 2014

Agenda

• The need to improve service delivery

• Role of HR in building sound people management

and HR practice

• HR as change agents

• HR standards as catalyst for change

• Closing the loop with HR audits

Crisis in service delivery

• Service delivery should be priority nr 1

• Building organisational capability at

municipal level

• Without sound HR management there will

be little or no improvement in service

delivery in local government

• We need competent HR professionals to

improve HR practice

SABPP Professional Values

RESPONSIBILITY

I

RESPECT

INTEGRITY

COMPETENCE

Key questions

• Are you satisfied with the quality of HR

practice?

• Do you see inconsistencies in HR work?

• Are HR practitioners competent to provide

HR service delivery?

• How can we improve HR without standards?

• If our HR functions are audited today, what

will be the outcome of an audit?

• How can we improve HR practice?

• Identifying talent issues before they impact the

business

• Adjusting HR strategies to respond to changing

business needs

• Understanding how HR business partners can

support the business

The results of our research indicated that our top three priority

CCR’s include the following:

SABPP Strategic Vision

“To Professionalise the HR Profession”

SABPP - ETQASABPP – Registration

CommitteeHRD

Committee

Business Leader’s

Expectations

OR

Critical Customer Requirements

(CCR’s)

Key HR Business Partner Outputs

Competencies

Care

er P

ath

s

Le

arn

ing

So

lutio

ns

SABPP Strategic Vision

“To Professionalise the HR Profession”

SABPP - ETQASABPP – Registration

CommitteeHRD

Committee

Business Leader’s

Expectations

OR

Critical Customer Requirements

(CCR’s)

Key HR Business Partner Outputs

Competencies

Care

er P

ath

s

Le

arn

ing

So

lutio

ns

1Communicating organisational culture/values to Employees

1Keep abreast of new legislation that may impact on business

1Preparing for different situations

2Responding to organisational changes

2Managing conflict between managers

2Assessing Employee attitudes

3Enforcing standard HR policies and procedures

3Resolving political problems in the execution of business plans

4Respond to manager needs

4Retention of talent within the business

5Capacity building/Skills development

6Quickly responding to employee needs

6Communication around HR in general

11Tracking trends in employee behaviours and attitudes.

11Keep the line updated on HR initiatives

13Prioritizing across HR Needs

25Utilising new business strategies

30Developing the next generation of leaders

32Identifying talent issues before they can impact on the business

35Identifying HR Metrics

42Adjusting HR strategies to respond to changing business needs

43Understanding how HRB’s can support the business

48Redesigning Organisational Structure around strategic objectives

54Understanding the Talent needs of the business

TOTALCCR

1Communicating organisational culture/values to Employees

1Keep abreast of new legislation that may impact on business

1Preparing for different situations

2Responding to organisational changes

2Managing conflict between managers

2Assessing Employee attitudes

3Enforcing standard HR policies and procedures

3Resolving political problems in the execution of business plans

4Respond to manager needs

4Retention of talent within the business

5Capacity building/Skills development

6Quickly responding to employee needs

6Communication around HR in general

11Tracking trends in employee behaviours and attitudes.

11Keep the line updated on HR initiatives

13Prioritizing across HR Needs

25Utilising new business strategies

30Developing the next generation of leaders

32Identifying talent issues before they can impact on the business

35Identifying HR Metrics

42Adjusting HR strategies to respond to changing business needs

43Understanding how HRB’s can support the business

48Redesigning Organisational Structure around strategic objectives

54Understanding the Talent needs of the business

TOTALCCR

Top HR priorities

• Quality and consistency in HR practice

• Skills development

• Sound people management practices

• Managing HR risks at municipalities

• Good employment relations

• Performance management

• Employee wellness at municipalities

• Building high performance municipalities

• Evaluating and measuring HR impact

PARADIGM SHIFT

OPERATIONAL MINDSET

• Day-to-day tasks

• Transactional HR

• Getting things done

• Crisis reactive management

• Doing things now

• Training for tasks

• Managing people

• Internal focus

• Short-term measures

STRATEGIC THINKING

• Long term priorities

• Transformational HR

• Creating value

• Proactive management

• Planning things for future

• Organisational capability

• Leading people

• External focus

• Strategic measures - metrics

Competency levels of the top 10

HR priorities

Priority Area Priority

Weight

Competency

Weight

Priority

Rank

Competency

Rank

Creating a high-performance culture /

Performance management 3.91 3.42 1 6

Leadership and management

development 3.79 3.36 2 8

Skills development 3.77 3.58 3 3

Focus on corporate values, ethics 3.71 3.45 4 4

Industrial / Employee relations 3.69 3.70 5 2

Customer service / relations 3.68 3.43 6 5

Employee engagement 3.68 3.35 7 9

Change management 3.68 3.22 8 16

Crafting and implementing HR strategy 3.64 3.40 9 7

HR policies and procedures 3.62 3.71 10 1

HR Survey (2011)

BUSINESS STRATEGY – HR BUSINESS ALIGNMENT

❶ StrategicHRM

❷ TalentManagement

❸ HR RiskManagement

HR ARCHITECTURE

HR VALUE & DELIVERY PLATFORM

❹Work-force

planning

❺

Learning

❻Perfor-mance

❼

Reward

❽Well-ness

❾ERM

❿OD

⓫ HR Service Delivery

⓬HR Technology

(HRIS)

Prepare

Imple-ment

Review Improve⓭ HR MEASUREMENTHR Audit: Standards & Metrics

H R

C O

M P

E T E N C

I E S© SABPP HRM SYSTEM STANDARD MODEL

HR as change agents

• HR practitioners know what goes wrong in

organisations

• They identify the need for change

• They build knowledge and skills

• They work with people problems and

complaints

• The know the gaps in organisation culture

• They have the knowledge to improve the

status quo

• They should drive HR standards & audits

HR Standards - Catalyst for

change• Applying a professional approach to HR

management

• Changing current approaches to HR

management at municipalities

• HR professionals as change agents

• The HR standards become the catalyst for

change (no need to waste time reinventing

the wheel)

• Strive towards getting basics right first and

then driving excellence going forward

HR standards at municipalities

• The need for HR professionalism according

to nationally agreed HR standards of

practice

• Implementing sound HR management in all

municipalities

• Building consistency in HR practices

• Providing a framework that can inspire HR

to improve current practice

• Standards can be audited

Globally standards are a framework for consistency &

continuous improvement and managing risk through

controls

“Consistency is far better than rare moments of greatness “

Strengthening the human factor in management systems

Why HR auditing?

• “HR Auditing crosses the boundaries between HR management and

auditing…

it can be a suitable method for evaluating the contribution of HR

activities to organisational objectives assessed on the basis of value

for money.” – Abstract from Dissertation; Chris Andrews: Bond

University.

• This model provides HR Professionals with a robust, risk-based

framework to ensure an integrated, aligned and well-governed

approach to auditing the National HR Standards.

• Ensures that HR controls quality and consistency in accordance with

the spirit of good governance as documented in King III.

• Focus on strengthening the HR Business Partner philosophy

without compromising the principles of quality and independence.

HR audits – the future

• HR audits will be implemented to audit

organisations against the HR standards

• Audits provide independent verification of

the quality of HR practice, and to highlight

gaps and opportunities for improvement

• National HR audits will make benchmarking

so much easier

• The HR practitioner is empowered to act on

the results of audits

Guidelines for HR change

agents• Internalise the HR standards at your

municipality

• Ensure that all HR practitioners have

knowledge of the HR standards

• Improve all aspects of HR according to the

standards

• Get line management involved

• Do an HR standards self-assessment

• When ready, go for external HR auditing

Conclusion

HR practitioners should be change agents to

raise the bar on HR practice.

We need to improve the quality of HR practice

at local government level if we are serious

about service delivery in our cities and towns.

This is the opportunity for HR to step up and

deliver high impact HR. Thank you for joining

us on the HR standards and auditing journey.