WOP psychology contributions to HR Management
News and Trends in Human Resources
 Matilda Vignola
Economic downturn challenges current HR management, demanding for renewed practices and approaches in favor of a future “recovery” of the labor market. While a new model for HR remains open to several serious criticisms, HRM welcomes ICT and integrates social media more and more in Social HR. At the same time, ever-increasing complexities in the work system make companies seeking for specific expertise and competences by means of outsourcing, for example. Even compensation management might represent a good example of HR rearrangement, despite constraints on pay budgets.
Jobs-skills mismatch in economic downturn
Current unemployment in combination with economic downturn tends to cause jobs-skills mismatch and imbalances, especially in developed economies. As reported by the ILO, on the one hand many over-qualified workers are hired for jobs below their skills level, on the other new available positions require competences jobseekers usually don’t have. Looking ahead to a recovery of the labor market, The CEDEFOP reports how difficult is to detect the best firm strategy for training mismatched workers, given the scarcity of data sources. Furthermore, governments’ policies promoting lifelong learning and flexicurity seem to be incongruent with poor incentives to enterprises focusing on transferable rather than firm-specific skills.
Links: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9817885/Economic-downturn-has-made-jobs-skills-mismatch-worse-says-ILO.html
http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/EN/Files/5521_en.pdf In the traditional HR model, the role of HR business partner implicated a series of responsibilities concerning talent management functions like sourcing, hiring, staffing, training, leadership, diversity, engagement and compensation. J. Bersin, principal and founder of Bersin by Deloitte, analyses reasons why this role didn’t work and reflects on a new operating model for HR. The research on High-Impact HR organizations carried out 8 interesting suggestions: 1) distribute authority and expertise among each business unit; 2) create “networks of expertise” by relocating senior talent professionals; 3) invest time and money building the skills of the HR team; 4) keep a clear HR strategy to facilitate the choice of the proper operating model; 5) integrate talent management teams; 6) turn HR technology from a “system of record” to a “system of engagement”; 7) manage a talent analytics maturity model; 8) promote a senior executive-driven governance process, that allows senior business leaders to directly see and impact HR, L&D, and talent investments, throughout the company.
Social HR
As organizations are integrating social media in HR practices, five trends emerge: 1) the use of gamification for typically non-game activities, like marketing, learning and development; 2) the death of the resume in selection process; 3) the increasing importance of Klout score; 4) the need for improving your personal branding ability; 5) the practice of scanning social networks to identify proper candidates, even unbeknownst to them. The ever-growing tendency to value candidates’ acquaintances and profiles on social networks at the same level of their knowledge, leads to wonder which is going to prevail between the knowledge economy and the social economy.
Link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeannemeister/2013/01/03/2013-the-year-of-social-hr/
Payroll outsourcing
Leaving payroll management to a third party payroll company can be a smart strategy to save time and money, ensure quality work and reduce risks. Despite enterprises could prefer to maintain control over wage information and payroll data in order to handle last-minutes changes, payroll outsourcing results more cost-effective than in-house processing. Indeed, the expertise of service providers prevents from mistakes and legal complexities, besides procuring tax guarantee benefits. In U.S.A., three categories of payroll service companies are acknowledged: payroll service providers (PSPs), reporting agents (RAs) and professional employer organizations (PEOs).
Links: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/47340
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stephendunn/2011/08/16/tips-for-payroll-outsourcing/
Pay differentation
Survey among 124 UK organizations, on the practice of varying pay awards. Main drives for pay differentiation tend to be individual performance, market alignment, internal consistency, key skills and potential. In spite of constraints on pay budgets due to current economy, an increasing tendency to reward high performance is found. Chris Charman, a director and reward practice leader at Towers Watson, highlights the usefulness to have reward and talent functions “joined-up in their approach”, especially while dealing with scarce resources.
Link: http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/hro/news/1076835/exclusive-pay-rises-performers
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