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Monday, July 7, 2025

HRMATT SAYS: HR can help build the organization of the future

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1113 days ago
20220620
Ms. Kimberly Chan, Education Officer,  Human Resource Management Association of Trinidad and Tobago

Ms. Kimberly Chan, Education Officer, Human Resource Management Association of Trinidad and Tobago

What comes to mind when you think of Hu­man Re­sources? Most peo­ple con­nect the role to “hir­ing and fir­ing” and more re­cent­ly, in our ex­ist­ing eco­nom­ic cli­mate, re­trench­ment. There are so many mis­con­cep­tions that sur­round what an HR Pro­fes­sion­al ac­tu­al­ly does, how­ev­er, while “hir­ing, fir­ing and re­trench­ment’ are el­e­ments of HR, one of HR’s strate­gic role is to de­vel­op peo­ple in a way they sup­port the over­ar­ch­ing goals of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, bridg­ing the gaps be­tween staff and the mis­sion of the C-Suite. Ac­cord­ing to the So­ci­ety for Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment (SHRM), “strate­gic hu­man re­source man­age­ment in­volves a fu­ture-ori­ent­ed process of de­vel­op­ing and im­ple­ment­ing HR pro­grams that ad­dress and solve busi­ness prob­lems and di­rect­ly con­tribute to ma­jor long-term busi­ness ob­jec­tives.”

In re­cent years, amidst the present health cri­sis sit­u­a­tion of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic which plagued the world solid­ly for ap­prox­i­mate­ly two years and con­tin­u­ing, and now, the high pos­si­bil­i­ty of the mon­key­pox virus mak­ing its way around the world, HR is crit­i­cal­ly re­quired to sup­port lead­er­ship in many ways. HR lead­ers were forced to plan and adapt to work-from-home (WFH) arrange­ments, with a high ex­pec­ta­tion of sup­port from lead­er­ship and ex­ec­u­tives, in prepar­ing ac­tion plans, cre­at­ing poli­cies, ne­go­ti­at­ing the al­ter­ation of terms and con­di­tions with em­ploy­ees and Unions, where there were Rec­og­nized Ma­jor­i­ty Unions (RMU), all in con­strict­ed time­lines. This proved that HR not on­ly sup­port­ed lead­ers and de­ci­sion-mak­ing but was re­quired to get in­volved in the fore­cast­ing of op­er­a­tions. There has been a shift where­by HR is seen by more or­gan­i­sa­tions than ever be­fore, as a strate­gic busi­ness part­ner.

While most or­gan­i­sa­tions em­ploy HR Man­agers, they were tasked with solv­ing em­ploy­ee prob­lems, man­ag­ing labour re­la­tions, and keep­ing em­ploy­ees ‘hap­py’. To­day, HR lead­ers are act­ing as coach­es for ex­ec­u­tives who re­quire the sup­port of deal­ing with the chal­lenges of the cri­sis sit­u­a­tions; this was es­pe­cial­ly seen with the sud­den in­tro­duc­tion of cur­fews, safe zones and Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions which forced the clo­sure of many busi­ness­es, lead­ing to men­tal health is­sues ex­pe­ri­enced by C-Suite and staff alike. In many cas­es where the bur­den fell on HR to show care and em­pa­thy through ac­tions tak­en and de­ci­sions made, who was there to sup­port HR?

At present, and fu­tur­is­ti­cal­ly plan­ning, pro­gres­sive HR lead­ers are now heav­i­ly fo­cus­ing their at­ten­tion, strate­gi­cal­ly and op­er­a­tional­ly through the or­gan­i­sa­tion­al plans geared to­wards “The Fu­ture of Work”. It is im­per­a­tive to con­sid­er what the fu­ture of work would look like as many or­gan­i­sa­tions are still un­clear of whether to main­tain the hy­brid work en­vi­ron­ment or to re­vert to the ar­cha­ic in-of­fice work sched­ules. Ac­cord­ing to De­loitte’s spe­cial re­port on Work­force strate­gies for post COVID-19 re­cov­ery, “Or­gan­i­sa­tions’ first pri­or­i­ty has been cri­sis re­sponse.

Now, as or­gan­i­sa­tions be­gin to emerge from this re­sponse phase, lead­ers are fo­cus­ing on the next set of work­force chal­lenges as they plan for the re­cov­ery.”

In con­sid­er­a­tion of the fu­ture of work, Havard Busi­ness Re­views ar­ti­cle en­ti­tled “11 Trends that Will Shape Work in 2022 and Be­yond” point #7 al­leges that “The com­plex­i­ty of man­ag­ing a hy­brid work­force will dri­ve some em­ploy­ers to re­quire a re­turn to the of­fice.” In Trinidad and To­ba­go, we have seen this re­turn to in of­fice work, and while this is re­quired in some sec­tors, it is high­ly pos­si­ble to main­tain the hy­brid work arrange­ments how­ev­er, with­out the right tools and equip­ment to mon­i­tor per­for­mance lev­els and the right tech­nol­o­gy and in­fra­struc­ture, there may be sig­nif­i­cant risks to or­gan­i­sa­tions. More im­por­tant­ly, the right at­ti­tude and be­hav­iours must ac­com­pa­ny these hy­brid work arrange­ments to sup­port its ef­fec­tive­ness and per­for­mance lev­els to en­sure sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

The dis­rup­tions we have wit­nessed are in­deed a chal­lenge. How­ev­er, we see it as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for HR to lead the way for their or­gan­i­sa­tions. The fu­ture of work is not on­ly about hy­brid work­ing arrange­ments but rather it is al­so the abil­i­ty to lever­age strat­e­gy and tech­nol­o­gy to em­pow­er HR to sup­port, flex­i­bil­i­ty, work-life bal­ance, or­gan­i­sa­tion­al re­struc­tur­ing & re-or­gan­i­sa­tion, re­view of op­er­a­tions and di­ver­si­ty, eq­ui­ty & in­clu­sion (dei).

The chal­lenge is on, as the race has be­gun for or­gan­i­sa­tion to adapt and plan for the fu­ture of work. At­tract­ing the right can­di­dates for po­si­tions will al­so be­come more com­pet­i­tive as can­di­dates will be as­sess­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions’ work styles and adap­ta­tion to new and emerg­ing trends which al­lows for flex­i­bil­i­ty, work-life bal­ance and oth­er fac­tors. Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, em­ploy­ees and po­ten­tial em­ploy­ees will al­so be re­quired to adapt to new re­quire­ments for po­si­tions, as or­gan­i­sa­tions are now fo­cus­ing on tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments and will seek to at­tract em­ploy­ees who are tech­nol­o­gy-savvy, flex­i­ble to re­mote work op­tions etc.

Job-seek­ers and stu­dents can ex­pect to see an in­crease of jobs and po­si­tions in the field of tech­nol­o­gy, ap­pli­ca­tion de­vel­op­ment, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty and sim­i­lar fields.

Giv­en the mag­ni­tude of the tasks that lie ahead, what will the fu­ture of work look like? Who will lead the race and set the stan­dards? As the or­ga­ni­za­tions of the fu­ture takes shape, HR will be the dri­ving force for many ini­tia­tives: map­ping tal­ent to val­ue; mak­ing the work­force more flex­i­ble; pri­ori­tis­ing strate­gic work­force plan­ning, per­for­mance man­age­ment, and reskilling; build­ing an HR plat­form; and de­vel­op­ing an HR tech ecosys­tem.

For oth­er ini­tia­tives, HR can help C-suite lead­ers push for­ward on es­tab­lish­ing and ra­di­at­ing pur­pose, im­prov­ing em­ploy­ee ex­pe­ri­ence, dri­ving lead­er­ship and cul­ture, and sim­pli­fy­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Are you ex­cit­ed yet?

About HRMATT: The Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad & To­ba­go (HRMATT) is the lead­ing voice of the Hu­man Re­source Pro­fes­sion lo­cal­ly. HRMATT Says is a col­umn meant to ad­dress is­sues and con­cerns of pro­fes­sion­als and the gen­er­al pub­lic fo­cused on Hu­man Cap­i­tal De­vel­op­ment. To­day’s ar­ti­cle is writ­ten by HRMATT’s Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer and Hu­man Re­source and In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Prac­ti­tion­er, Kim­ber­ly Chan, MBA, AM­ABE. Learn more about HRMATT by vis­it­ing all our web­site: www.hrmatt.com. Fol­low us on Face­book, LinkedIn, In­sta­gram and Twit­ter. Con­tact us: 687-5523 or via email: sec­re­tari­at@hrmatt.com


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