Building better HR departments

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide answers to four questions on building a better human resources (HR) department: why?, who?, what? and how?

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is based on the accumulated experience of the co-authors.

Findings

The paper finds that better HR departments create better organizations and will often do this by enabling better relationships between the people working in them. Developing the right relationships is also an increasingly important part of creating an effective HR organization.

Research limitations/implications

Much attention has been spent on developing HR professionals. The authors also want to make HR departments better. This paper steers future research on HR effectiveness in this direction.

Practical implications

Senior HR leaders charged with improving their HR department may do so with the roadmap offered by the authors.

Originality/value

For businesses to receive full value from HR, it is very important to upgrade the quality of HR professionals. It is even more important to upgrade HR departments. This paper suggests how this can be done.

Citation

Ingham, J. and Ulrich, D. (2016), "Building better HR departments", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 129-136. https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-03-2016-0025