The changing role of Human Resources – R.I.P. “Personnel”!

People will be writing books for a long time about the pandemic and the effect it has had on society. It’s like the largest social experiment of modern times ever to have happened!

As a recruiter, you see lots of trends in the market, job roles in demand, changes in salary levels and differing career progression routes. For example, finance and operations traditional have lead to CEO and MD roles from a career progression perspective. Moving forward I think change is coming…

When I started my first job in London it was in a 5 Star Hotel that was (and is) at the top end of the luxury market.

The HR office was a cupboard at the back of the laundry room. I was told on my first day that H.R. (or Human Remains as they used to called them) only got in touch with you when there were problems, and my mentor told me if they ever call you, avoid them, they probably want to get you to do something you don’t want to. It is safe to say that things have come a long way since. We have moved from “personnel” to “people and culture”

If there is one area that has been at the forefront of EVERY business through the pandemic, it has to be its people.

The very essence of what it is to be an employer has changed. Employers are no longer only responsible for providing a wage – the best ones are now looking at engagement, progression and development of their team. Having effective HR professionals leading the business takes a major part. The most effective people we speak to from this sector see Human Resources not as being an admin function, but as being a commercial function of the business with measurable results and targeted initiatives to drive engagement, outcomes and ultimately, profit.

In the past 12 months, diversity and inclusion has moved up the agenda in a very noticeable way. It was always something in the background for many businesses, however, the events that shook up America last year made diversity and inclusion a key issue for many companies, as they see the value in being more representative.

For many, it isn’t a key part of attracting and engaging top talent. Businesses of a certain size will be expected to have diversity and inclusion specialists working as part of the team.

Multiple senior management hires have emerged in the past 18 months, where HR professionals have moved into commercial, managing director, COO and CEO roles. This is surely a testimony to the growing importance of the function as part of the overall business.

Will it work for all businesses? Maybe not. We can acknowledge that there is now more balanced views at executive levels within businesses. I think this is something that will only increase in years to come.

Salaries for HR professionals have been up through the pandemic. Roles we were recruiting for in 2018 and averaging a salary of around 90,000 are now coming in the 120,000s and positions which were coming in at 120,000 are now up to 150,000.

HR Managers’ salaries have also been subject to increase and so have been those of Employee Relations, Learning & Development and Talent Management. We believe the increase to be around 20-25% over this period.

The only sector we noticed to have a similar rise is within digital. When you do find a contact who has digital HR transformation experience? hold on to them 😊

This year, COREcruitment are doing a lot of work around diversity and inclusion and we are hosting a series of workshops through a Google Initiative called “I am remarkable”: https://bit.ly/30Bhs3D

Our latest salary checkers have been updated: https://bit.ly/2NI6WEC

Some of the top jobs we are recruiting for:

Head of People and Culture | COREcruitment London

Human Resources Director | COREcruitment – Los Angeles

HR Business Partner | COREcruitment London

Head of HR | COREcruitment UK

Krishnan Doyle

krishnan@corecruitment.com

+44 (0) 207 790 2666