The current recruitment market for HR professionals gives us some clues. We are finding that we are being asked for three different ‘brands’ of HR professional. This is predominantly driven by where the CEO of the organisation sees their people; are they an asset that will drive business performance and growth, or are they a cost that needs containing?
In turn, much of this is driven by where that organisation is in its cycle; downsizing, consolidation or growth. (I caveat this with the point that this wide-ranging generalisation is mainly focused towards larger organisations of 1,000 employees or more.)
Downsizing
For those organisations that are downsizing we find that the HR directors are typically from reward or generalist backgrounds with strong ER capability. This is then reflected in the shape of their HR function with a relatively small centre of excellence, limited HRIS and a community of broad HR generalists working in fairly transactional roles with limited self service from managers.
The CEO will typically have been brought in to cut costs as part of a turnaround process, and will have limited time for the luxuries of talent and development. HR will therefore need to fit into her/his agenda accordingly – and often reports into the COO, CFO or general counsel. In the main we do not have much demand from these types of organisation – but we see a number of HR candidates coming out of them.
Consolidation
CEOs in consolidation mode may be starting to look at the future shape of the business and a shift to growth mode. This typically requires an HR function that has more capability in identifying what skills are required from the employees of the company to enable it to achieve its change in strategy.
It’s more likely that the HRDs in these organisations will have more access to the CEO, even if not a seat on the executive board – although this may come as HR demonstrates the value it can add. In the current market there are a number of companies going through this transition phase who require mid-level talent and development capability – either as specialists within a growing CoE or as part of the wider HR business partner skillset. We are also seeing a need for reward business partners and analysts that can link reward to performance, as well as HR operations specialists who can get HRIS and shared service working more effectively.
Growth
It’s in the organisations in growth mode that we typically find the more people-orientated CEOs. They recognise that developing, retaining and attracting talent is key to the success of the business and look for HR directors who can work with them to enable this to happen. It’s in these companies that we see strong CoEs working in tandem with a business-focused HRBP team supported by an HR shared service function. For most of our candidates this is nirvana, with that often requested and elusive potential for a seat for HR at the top table.
The good news is that it looks like the economy is giving organisations the optimism to create more of these opportunities.
Iain McAdam is the head of HR executive search and permanent recruitment at Digby Morgan
