Clearly HR departments are evolving in our country. From an administrative perspective, the focus is now on a strategic outlook where talent HR Professionals looks at improving the work environment and plan out human resource needs. Though it is a reflection of what is happening in the western context, the Indian work force and industrial climate is changing.

This short article looks at five major challenges that we facing in terms of human resources and human resource management.

Managing Knowledge Workers

Essentially, here we are looking at different kind of people who does not obey the principles of management for the traditional group. This boils down to higher educational qualifications, taking up responsibilities at a lesser age and experience, high bargaining power due to the knowledge and skills in hand, high demand for the knowledge workers, and techno suaveness.

The clear shift is seen in terms of organization career commitment to individualized career management. Managing this set of people is essential for the growth of any industry but especially the IT and other knowledge based sectors.

In every arena organizations are getting more and more technologically oriented. Though it is not in the main run after the initial debates, preparing the work force to accept technological changes is a major challenge. We have seen sectors like banking undergoing revolutionary changes enabled by technology. It is a huge challenge to bring in IT and other technology acceptance all levels in organizations.

Competence of HR Managers

As it is more and more accepted that lot of success of organizations depend on the human capital, this boils to recruiting the best, managing the best and retaining the best. Clearly HR managers have a role in this process. Often it is discussed about lack of competence of HR managers in understanding the business imperative. There is now a need to develop competent HR professionals who are sound in HR management practices with strong business knowledge.

Developing Leadership

It is quite interesting to note that there is less importance given to developing leadership at the organizational level. Though leadership is discussed on basis of traits and certain qualities, at an organizational level it is more based on knowledge. The challenge is to develop individuals who have performance potential on basis of past record and knowledge based expertise in to business leaders by imparting them with the necessary “soft skills”.

Managing Change

Business environment in India is volatile. There is boom in terms of opportunities brought forward by globalization. However this is also leading to many interventions in terms of restructuring, turnaround, mergers, downsizing, etc. Research has clearly shown that the success of these interventions is heavily dependent on managing the people issues in the process. HR has a pivotal role to play here.