Adrian Furnham, professor of psychology at UCL and recipient of the HR Most Influential Lifetime Achievement Award, said a good HR professional must understand their business and not just focus on people, in a video filmed at the 2017 HR Most Influential networking event.
"The professional of the future will be very savvy with regards to technology... and more aware of how their business evolves and changes," he said.
The HR Most Influential rankings, sponsored by Open University Business School, recognise the HR practitioners and thinkers pushing the field of people strategy forward.
The Lifetime Achievement Award is the highest accolade bestowed by HR magazine on an individual in recognition of their outstanding and exceptional contribution to HR thinking or practice. Recipients take their place in the HR Most Influential Hall of Fame.
Also speaking at the event, Stephen Pierce, chief HR officer for Hitachi Europe, warned that HR is facing a number of challenges in the near future.
"You have the obvious things like Brexit because we don't yet know what that will mean," he said. "But there are other more immediate issues [to deal with], such as the new data protection regulations."
