Country Director for Global Professional HR Certification, Dr Jeff Bassey, has revealed that salaries and compensations for employees in an organisation is a critical engagement drive.
Dr Bassey indicated that it is crucial for employers to understand the scope of such incentives and its contributory impact to the productivity of an organisation. He explained that such monetary compensations have become necessary owing to the rising cost of living and other economic challenges in the country.
The HR expert noted that human beings by nature will always see the need to ask for more no matter how well they are paid. As such, he expressed that one critical area in human resource management today that employers must consider is people analytics or human resource analytics, “where you want to measure productivity and match it against profitability” of the organisation.
“Of course, we all know the times we are in now, hikes in prices of almost every product and service and it’s only fair that if the organisation is able to deliver some return on investment, employers [should] look at this critically… So, we probably would want to do some cost-of-living adjustment, what we call in HR COLA, just so that these people can have some level of adequate salary to go around with to be motivated. Money or compensation is a critical engagement drive and their workers are able to survive in this environment. As much as we also encourage employees or workers that until the organisation produces or is able to create much, there will be nothing to be shared or given to you as a worker.”
Dr Jeff Bassey
Evolution of human resource management
Speaking in celebration of today’s International HR Day, Dr Bassey highlighted that the world of HR has evolved from when it used to be personnel management, where HR officers were only concerned with managing everyday administrative duties that comes with the profession. He opined that HR has currently grown into a “pure talent cum leadership” profession, further accelerated by COVID.
Dr Bassey revealed that the new era of HR means that the approach to workforce management has changed from people not only working from the office but working remotely.
“How have all those dynamics played in today’s HR management? We can tell you an example like managing performance for instance; rather than wait to do a performance appraisal at the end of the financial year, I’m sure you won’t be surprised by the result you get when people work from home. You will now have to probably tie people to conversations on how to meet targets and when there are stumbling blocks, how do we help you weekly? So, the person is helped to target rather than how many hours you avail yourself to work. I think that is one of the critical responses that human resource management is done today.”
Dr Jeff Bassey
The International HR Day is celebrated every year and the theme for this year’s celebration is ‘HR shaping the new future’. The theme is about building an identity for HR into something bigger than itself. It is about the HR profession in leading change to improve working lives and not slipping back into traditional ways of thinking and working.
The theme implies that the profession is about leading a future that will be more inclusive, flexible, participative; one which will benefit workers, organisations and society as a whole.
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