In pursuit of ‘business partner’ status, many HR practitioners are energetically employing conceptual perspectives that are too limited.  The main “unit of analysis” being used is the individual – i.e. how to develop, reward and retain an employee.  Witness how Human Capital has got wedded to psychology!  Dr Johan du Toit reminds us why Social Capital – which requires a broader and longer view – is actually indispensable to wise “Human Capital” management.

Show me your preferred Change Management model and it will tell me a lot about you and your organisation.  Your preferred world-view is truly revealed by your preferred Change “technology”.  Beer and Nohria studied the vast Change Management literature (Breaking the Code of Change, 2001) and concluded that all the existing approaches lean to one or the other pole in their “polar” framework.  They point out that neither approach is necessarily always better than the other.  What these authors do advocate is being aware of your choice (or your “theory in use”), not muddling the two inadvertently, and ensuring the adopted approach suites the circumstances.

This article’s stream-of-consciousness goes something like this:

• Human Resource Management professionalization efforts requires (proper definition of?) and mastery of a complex body of knowledge and skills
• But HRM is a fairly new “managerial profession” that still has contested definitions of itself
• Current degree programmes leading to HR careers focus on individual/group perspectives
• A more encompassing approach is needed that includes and synthesises the macro perspective of social structures to enable HRM practitioners to see with “both eyes”

Managing performance is one of the toughest things a manager does and the toughest thing an employee goes through.  There is usually a tension in any organisation around “appraisal time” and this is due to a few underlying factors that forms the foundation of whether an appraisal system is successful or not.

Within this article, the author reflects on some of the abnormal or unacceptable behaviours by leaders within organisations, which ultimately have a negative impact on both employee morale and organisational performance.

An earlier version of this article was published in HR Future (www.hrfuture.net). Used with permission.

Inter-cultural competencies have become increasingly important in the global  business environment. Companies are expanding business operations to other countries, very often in unfamiliar markets and business territories. The explosive growth in globalization has led to a growing number of staff involved in international assignments, and people moving to other countries to explore better job opportunities.

But how easy is it to adapt to an environment that is totally different from your own background? Consider, for instance, the vast differences in culture, language, religion, norms, customs and ways of doing things. Let alone all the different laws and regulations that you have to adapt to.

This article provides a brief overview of the importance of risk management, conceptualised from an HR risk management perspective.  The point of departure is that a lack of HR risk management contributes to the poor credibility of HR, given the fact that a reactive approach to HR management is often used, with no or little regard for risk management.  A case study is used to demonstrate the importance of HR risks, and the article concludes with guidelines for application.