The cover story in the November issue of HR magazine explores the global movement to develop HR standards.
This publication believes that standards could help elevate the credibility of HR internally and externally, but should not be introduced for credibility's sake – there needs to be a robust business case for standardisation.
The CIPD, CIMA and other bodies recently launched the Valuing your Talent initiative, which aims to develop a human capital framework and metrics. It appears the standardisation of HR, in some form or another, will be an important issue to follow in 2014.
Many professions benefit from having standards, such as medicine, IT and professional services.
At the very least, standards drive consistent practice, which in some fields is more important than others. This is particularly the case in accounting, where the need for companies to produce comparable financial statements is being driven by globalisation and cross-border trade.
Standards have also helped improve the quality of practice in accounting and the credibility of financial reports.
But developing a set of HR standards could prove more tricky. By its very nature, HR is less technical and requires more creativity and flexibility than many of the disciplines that are standardised. For example, the talent management priorities of a multinational mining company will be vastly different to that of a regional hospital.
So while standards may help drive consistency, if they are too rigid or rules-based, it could stifle HR's effectiveness and become an exercise in box-ticking.
There is still a lot of work that needs to be done to determine exactly which parts of HR, if any, need standardising.
Our cover story, which will be published online later this week, shows that the US profession has already begun developing HR standards, albeit with some early teething problems.
It is important that the UK profession is not left behind. If global HR standards are inevitable, the UK should take a lead role in shaping the future of HR, as it did during the formation of international accounting standards.
