Survey 2010:
The state of HR - from recession to recovery?
I am once again delighted that Speechly Bircham has teamed up with the internationally renowned academic team at King’s College London, through the King’s HRM Learning Board, to undertake this survey. Now in its second year, the survey offers a truly unique insight into the issues senior HR professionals face in these difficult economic times, what the HR function is doing to address those issues and how the function itself is being affected by the changes going on around it.
There are many interesting themes to emerge from the responses this year. From a high level view it is striking how different industry sectors have been impacted differently over this period. We asked respondents to focus on the period from November 2008 to October 2009.
Employee engagement remains the number one challenge for HR professionals, with recognition given to the damage done to engagement by the recession and the consequent need to focus on it as a priority as the economy recovers.
There seems to have been an increasingly enlightened approach to achieving cost saving in the recession. While compulsory redundancies have featured heavily, employers have demonstrated a greater appetite for looking at alternative ideas including a dramatic increase in the use of flexible working arrangements.
For the HR function itself, the experience over the last 12 months appears to have been one of being required to do more and more with less and less resource (a familiar theme one might say). Unfortunately the overall underlying message that emerges for the future is that the next year is going to bring even more challenges for HR.
To download a copy of the report please click here
Richard Martin
Employment Partner, Speechly Bircham
Speechly Bircham’s Employment group is a leading employment law practice meeting the diverse needs of a broad range of employer and senior employee clients. Employer clients include public and private companies, partnerships and other organisations, based in the UK and overseas, across a wide range of business and professional sectors, with a strong focus on financial services, professional services,media and entertainment, as well as larger corporates. The team handles sensitive and complex issues across the spectrum of the employment relationship. The group has specialist expertise concerning immigration issues and works closely with the firm’s pension and employee benefit teams. The team is highly regarded for its experienced, discreet and practical approach. www.speechlys.com/employment
The HRM Learning Board is unique in the way it connects organisations to the latest academic research and thinking on contemporary workforce issues. Through its workshop and seminar programme, bespoke learning and advisory activities, and through a variety of other forums and media, the Learning Board is an innovative thought leader on contemporary people management practice. It also helps organisations and enhances the experience of King's postgraduate student talent pool by developing work placements, internships and projects with partners on key workforce development interventions and strategies. www.kcl.ac.uk/hrmlb
Copyright © 2010