GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

More than ever, busi­ness­es need hu­man re­sources (HR) to play a proac­tive role in ad­dress­ing its tal­ent needs to be com­pet­i­tive in the glob­al are­na, says pres­i­dent of the Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (HRMATT), Cavelle Joseph-St Omer.

In this light, the or­gan­i­sa­tion is seek­ing to as­sist en­ti­ties by pro­vid­ing more guid­ed sup­port to lo­cal Small and Medi­um En­ter­pris­es (SMEs) which do not have an in-house HR func­tion.

“We will be scal­ing up our work­shops with them in mind. These work­shops will guide SMEs to as­sess their HR ma­tu­ri­ty, and im­ple­ment hu­man cap­i­tal play­books that are rel­e­vant to their needs,” Joseph-St Omer said while speak­ing at HRMATT’s 2023 bi­en­ni­al con­fer­ence ti­tled, HR in­to the Meta­verse, which as held at the Hy­att Re­gency yes­ter­day.

Ac­cord­ing to Joseph-St Omer, busi­ness­es that have a strong and strate­gic HR en­able them to stay com­pet­i­tive, at­tract and grow the right tal­ent to sup­port busi­ness ob­jec­tives and seize new op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“At HRMATT, we recog­nise that to sup­port em­ploy­ers in HR ca­pa­bil­i­ty trans­for­ma­tion, we must push ahead with HR dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion. At the op­er­a­tional lev­el, HR process au­toma­tion will lead to time and re­source sav­ings.

“At the strate­gic lev­el, the use of peo­ple da­ta and an­a­lyt­ics can help or­gan­i­sa­tions bet­ter plan and align work­force skills and train­ing needs to the busi­ness strat­e­gy,” she added.

Joseph-St Omer al­so spoke about why it is im­por­tant to up­lift HR with rel­e­vant skills and mind­sets.

“Equip­ping HR pro­fes­sion­als with fu­ture-ready skills and mind­sets to suc­ceed as strate­gic busi­ness part­ners and lead­ers, is a key step in this jour­ney to see more HR pro­fes­sion­als get cer­ti­fied and take their right­ful place at the de­ci­sion-mak­ing ta­ble,” she added.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Joseph-St Omer said cer­ti­fi­ca­tion recog­nised the in­di­vid­ual’s knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence as an HR pro­fes­sion­al, adding that it al­so pro­vides an in­di­vid­ual with ac­cess to ex­ten­sive HR net­works and re­sources, in­clud­ing lat­est in­dus­try prac­tices.

There are al­so plans by HRMATT to of­fer more cu­rat­ed pro­grammes to sup­port the skills up­grad­ing and lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment of HR pro­fes­sion­als.

“HRMATT will proac­tive­ly iden­ti­fy emerg­ing HR com­pe­ten­cies such as in skills-based hir­ing and ca­reer de­vel­op­ment for em­ploy­ees, strate­gic work­force plan­ning and flex­i­ble work mod­els and pri­ori­tis­ing train­ing in these ar­eas.

“In ad­di­tion, non-HR su­per­vi­sors who are of­ten en­trust­ed to do re­cruit­ment and sup­port their team’s de­vel­op­ment should al­so be equipped with knowl­edge and com­pe­ten­cies on fair and pro­gres­sive HR prac­tices, in­clud­ing labour leg­is­la­tion,” Joseph-St Omer de­tailed.

On the is­sue of sus­tain­abil­i­ty, she not­ed that to sus­tain a long-term com­pet­i­tive edge, busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion ef­forts must bal­ance em­ploy­ees’ needs and ex­pec­ta­tions along with busi­ness goals, adding that HRMATT will con­tin­ue to col­lab­o­rate with lead­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions to sup­port HR to im­ple­ment pro­gres­sive work prac­tices.

“HRMATT will con­tin­ue to col­lab­o­rate with lead­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions to sup­port HR to im­ple­ment pro­gres­sive work prac­tices,” Joseph-St Omer said.