On 1 July the stars of HR gathered at Le Mridien Grosvenor House in Park Lane for this years Human Resources magazine/KPMG Consulting HR excellence awards. Those who made it to the short list had already shown that they were genuinely contributing to their organisations critical strategic goals. But the winners this year provide a glimpse of what world-class HR looks like. Indeed, the overall winner GKN Aerospace is a very exciting example of how HR provided excellent support in due diligence and other relevant areas during a very tough British acquisition of a US business. You can read about this and other cases of HR excellence in the loose supplement within this issue.

In many respects the future of HR is in the hands of the people recruited into the profession today. We talk to three young graduates who want to go into HR to find out what attracts them.

Will Hutton, chief executive of The Work Foundation and author of The World Were In, is convinced that Europes socially beneficial business model is superior to its US counterpart. This is an argument that ought to be close to the hearts of many HR directors who are struggling to find ways to balance shareholder pressures with the need to make long-term HR plans. I feel enormous solidarity with HR managers, says Hutton. He has, he says, consistently argued for stakeholding, for partnership, for information and consultation, taking the organisational side of business life really seriously.

While the BBC tests the nations IQ, the EQ test is only just beginning to establish itself. We look at psychometric tests that can help measure the emotional intelligence that exists within companies.

Can you see into the future? Do you know what HR will look like in 2010? We are asking readers to help us find out by responding to a survey The demanding society: managing work in 2010 produced by Human Resources magazine in association with Ceridian Centrefile. You will find a copy inside this issue or you can find a PDF of the questionnaire on the home page on our web site. Alternatively you can contact Annette Bissoon for a hard copy of the questionnaire on 020 8267 4629. The results will be reported in the October issue of the magazine.

And finally, this is my last issue as editor of Human Resources. I shall be handing the baton to Trevor Merriden, formerly features editor on Management Today and more recently, editor of Internet Business. It has been a hugely stimulating experience to edit this magazine and I remain convinced that HR is one of the most important business functions today. But after publishing numerous articles and columns on fleas and free agents, I have decided to become one of them.

Morice Mendoza

Editor