HR functions are giving insufficient attention to the potential impact of external social and political influences when designing HR policy goals and are instead focusing too much on short-term issues such as cost.
These are the key findings of a survey among 52 HR directors and board members working in large corporates across Europe conducted by HR services provider, Aon Hewitt.
The study entitled the ‘HR Barometer’ revealed that ‘cost sensitivity’ was top of the list of considerations when devising HR policies, followed by ensuring that the labour force was suitably skilled and qualified and that the right talent was in the right place at the right time.
But despite the impact that emerging social and political issues were likely to have on businesses everywhere, the poll showed that they were given surprisingly limited thought. Key issues in this context include perceived rises in societal inequality, increases in the retirement age, demand for higher ethical standards in business and the expanding role of social networks.
With regard to short-term priorities to help fulfil policy goals, however, learning and development activities were given top billing by 69% of respondents, followed by providing suitable rewards for employee performance.
Over the next two years though, such priorities were expected to change, with leadership development (46%) taking the lead, employee engagement (37%) coming in second place and talent retention (37%) in third.
Leonardo Sforza, author of the study and chair of Aon Hewitt’s European club for HR, said: “With people management policies and employee engagement now fully recognised as critical factors to achieve corporate fitness, the pressure on the HR function to upgrade its business acumen and deliver more effectively against business expectation will further increase.”
But those questioned believed that they had hit corporate targets in only 10 out of 25 employee-related areas. They admitted to being particularly poor at devising effective work-life balance programmes; mapping and managing competencies; using HR metrics tools and managing inter-generational diversity.
On the plus side, HR leaders scored themselves highly in relation to issues such as corporate governance, industrial relations, workplace health and safety and corporate social responsibility.
