A New Mandate for Human Resources – An Analysis

The article “A New Mandate for Human Resources”, Dave Ulrich (1998) speaks of
the five critical and competitive challenges HR has to face, its mandate towards
organizational excellence and the processes that it needs to employ and to undergo to attain
breakthrough and unleash HR’s full potential.

The competitive challenges are globalization, profitability through growth,

technology, intellectual capital and embracement of change. Ulrich states that organization
has to increase its ability to learn, to collaborate and to manage diversity, complexity and
ambiguity to be able to cope with the demand of globalization. The need to become globally
competent and literate are key factors to be able to handle global competitions and market
demands.

Globalization has also brought forth diverse customer needs, thus a need to cultivate
creativity and innovation. Gone with “thinking outside the box” but completely eradicating
the box. Growth and expansion means more profit hence joint ventures, merges and
acquisitions. It speaks of integrating different organizations’ work processes and cultures to
be able to create one big organization capable of growing together profitably.

Technology perhaps is a challenge that most of the organizations are willing to

embrace. The trends now is e-government and e-governance. That is the use of ICT in
government operations, as a tool to increase the outreach of the government services to the
general public. HRIS, which is also known as a human resource information system or human
resource management system (HRMS) has gained the focus among HR practitioners. It is
basically an intersection of human resources and information technology through HR
software. This allows HR activities and processes to occur electronically. Through HRIS,
linkages with the four core areas of the Human Resource Management are formed making it a
productive part of the HRM and the entire organizational operation. There is so much in
technology that HR practitioners have to explore and make use of to be able to appreciate its
advantages and use to its benefits and the organization.

Alongside with technology is intellectual capital. To develop and sustain workforce

excellence, learning and development plays an important role. The quality of an
organization’s service delivery is highly dependent on the competence of its personnel which
in turn should be continuously developed and upgraded through comprehensive and
sustainable learning and development programs. L&D is needed to capacitate its human

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resources with the needed competencies to be able to deliver performance and results.
Providing learning opportunities to human resources and molding them to grow is a way to
retain performers in the organization.

And lastly, as they say, change is the only constant in this world, organizations must
adapt to change to be successful and to be able to meet customers’ needs. An organization
needs to be efficiently transition if there is a new strategy. Managing change as one of the
core competencies in the managerial and leadership functions, is about motivation and
influencing behavior, about breaking old habits and attitudes and embracing the new. It is
important for the organization to cultivate a learning organization and innovation as its core
competency.

In addition, to be able to shift from conventional administrators to administrative

experts, technology again will play an important function to deliver this image. This is one of
the goals in the PRIME – HRM through HRIS. Using this system, processes are made simple,
accessible, convenient and fast. Employees have access to their own files and processing
leaves and approval thereof can be made anywhere and anytime. In might be expensive and
tedious, yet the cost cannot defeat the tantamount advantages and benefits of that HRIS can
offer in attaining organizational excellence.

Being an employee champion is a crucial role of the HR as it deals with nurturing the
moral of the employees. It is about taking into consideration the level of their job satisfaction
and motivation. Motivated employees redound to an increased organizational productivity
and efficiency. It is on this premise that HR must set clear and well-defined organizational
goals, priorities and performance management system. To be the employees’ voice, HR must
be able to establish a clear line of communication between the management and the
employees to address issues, problems and grievances in the organization.

And lastly, HR as an agent of change. Changing the culture of the organization

perhaps is the most difficult task and requires a tedious process, but when the change has
slowly assimilated, it is the most rewarding. As change agent, HR is geared towards
establishing the desired change specification, developing a change management plan and
communicating the plan that will capacitate the organization in terms of changes in
behaviors, structures and technologies. The role of HR is to create a change model that would
make the organization embrace possibilities and turn fears of change into excitement and
resistance to resolve.

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 HR public sectors is introduced by the Civil Service Commission, being the central
human resource of the country. Its Program to Institutionalized Merictoracry and Excellence
in the Human Resource Management (PRIME-HRM) aims to elevate public sector human
resource management to a level of excellence through the assessment, assistance, and
awarding processes of HRM Systems, Practices, and Competencies using HRM maturity
level indicators that are at par with global HRM standards.

Truly, the role of HR is indespensable and relevant. It must be dynamic and fluid to
adapt changes and drive ongoing transformation efforts to support vital staffing decisions and
maintain organization agility.

I may not be part of our HR pratitioner, but I am performing an HR function in the

Engineering department. I took pride of our HR accomplishment in the CSC PRIME-HRM
journey. I saw how we transformed from being transactional to being processed –defined. To
conclude, HR is indeed an indespensable part of every organization. Its vital function to
achieve organization excellence is a rigorous task that needs to be partnered and suported
with by the management as these practices require monetary and financial support. It is
through the suport of the top management and the supervisors that HR will be motivated and
be gained with the confidence to fully execute its functions and delivers results for the entire
workforce. This would be a strong thrust towards achieving organization excellence.

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