This presentation explores the changing role of HR from transactional personnel management to the recruitment, development and retention of academic talent in a modern university.

1. Professor Nigel Healey, Vice Chancellor
Fiji National University
The changing role of our HR
function: what is HR for in a
21st century university?
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2. Overview
• The Personnel Department days
• The HR function in a 21st century university:
• Recruiting talent
• Developing talent
• Retaining talent
• Succession planning
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3. The Personnel Department at work
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4. Characteristics of the Personnel
Department days
• Dull, repetitive, routine work
• Inputs = outputs
• Role of personnel management:
• Ensure staff put in the inputs (hours)
• Staff are all the same – get them cheap, work them hard
• Make them follow rules and procedures
• Give them a Gold Watch when they retire
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5. Underlying assumptions of the
Personnel Department
• People don’t want to work – unless you control
them, they will be lazy and unproductive
• People steal and cheat – they will take advantage of
managerial weakness
• People must respect and obey their “superiors”
without question
• People don’t like change – they don’t want to learn
or develop themselves personally and professionally
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6. The new knowledge economy
• It’s not who you know – goodbye nepotism
• It’s not what you know – we all have degrees
• It’s what you can do:
• Creativity
• Originality
• Independent thinking
• Emotional intelligence
• Team working
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7. ‘He’s got a sword!”
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8. What can you do in the knowledge
economy?
• It is not about inputs – but outputs
• It is not about following rules - but learning and
innovating
• It is not about “knowing your place” – but striving for
personal and professional development
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9. Universities are the ultimate
knowledge organisations
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10. The HR function in a 21st century
university: Recruiting talent
• There are >200m students in tertiary education and
at least 21,000 universities
• The best universities are diverse and multinational:
UCL vs Chelsea
• Recruiting talent is as much about selling the
benefits of FNU as selecting from a list of applicants
• True talent has a “multiplier” effect: think Ronaldo
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11. Question #1
• Do our current recruitment and selection policies
attract the best talent to FNU?
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12. The HR function in a 21st century
university: Developing talent
• To survive in today’s knowledge economy, our staff
need to constantly upskill and reskill
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13. Question #2
• Do our current HR policies facilitate, support and
incentivise our staff to upgrade their qualifications
and skills?
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14. The HR function in a 21st century
university: Retaining talent
• Recruiting and developing staff in a competitive
environment is expensive and high-risk
• Talent is internationally mobile and can be poached:
think Ronaldo
• To “lock in” talent, we need to provide:
• Competitive rewards and benefits
• A nurturing, caring environment
• Internal (and maybe external) career development
opportunities
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15. Question #3
• Do our HR policies help us retain talent?
• …in an internationally competitive market?
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16. The HR function in a 21st century
university: Succession planning
• The certainty of demographics
• “In the long run, we are all dead” (John Maynard
Keynes)
• The tension between “open merit recruitment” and
organisational stability and direction
• Positive discrimination vs empowerment and
development
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17. Question #4
• Do our current HR policies prepare and develop the
next generation of senior academics and leaders?
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18. Conclusions
• Personnel management is a transactional,
confrontational 20th century approach to controlling
people
• HR is about recruiting, developing, retaining and
planning the career development of talent
• FNU is a 21st century university and needs a 21st
century HR function
• Vinaka!
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