The document discusses the role of HR practitioners as change agents to improve HR practices and service delivery in local governments. It emphasizes that HR practitioners should drive the implementation of HR standards and audits to bring consistency and continuous improvement. The standards can act as a catalyst for change by providing a framework to assess current practices, identify gaps, and guide practitioners on strengthening areas like skills development, performance management, and employee relations. Regular audits against the standards will allow benchmarking progress and verifying the quality of HR practices. The document calls on HR practitioners to internalize the standards, educate others, conduct self-assessments, and work towards external audits to ultimately raise the bar on HR practices.

1. THE HR PRACTITIONER AS CHANGE AGENT
IMPSA 30THANNUAL CONFERENCE
Bruno Bruniquel
29 October 2014

2. Agenda
•The need to improve service delivery
•Role of HR in building sound people management and HR practice
•HR as change agents
•HR standards as catalyst for change
•Closing the loop with HR audits

3. Crisis in service delivery
•Service delivery should be priority nr 1
•Building organisational capability at municipal level
•Without sound HR management there will be little or no improvement in service delivery in local government
•We need competent HR professionals to improve HR practice

4. SABPP Professional Values
RESPONSIBILITY
I
RESPECT
INTEGRITY
COMPETENCE

5. Key questions
•Are you satisfied with the quality of HR practice?
•Do you see inconsistencies in HR work?
•Are HR practitioners competent to provide HR service delivery?
•How can we improve HR without standards?
•If our HR functions are audited today, what will be the outcome of an audit?
•How can we improve HR practice?

6. • Identifying talent issues before they impact the
business
• Adjusting HR strategies to respond to changing
business needs
• Understanding how HR business partners can
support the business
The results of our research indicated that our top three priority
CCR’s include the following:
SABPP Strategic Vision
“To Professionalise the HR Profession”
SABPP - ETQA
SABPP – Registration
Committee
HRD
Committee
Business
Leader’s
Expectations
OR
Critical Customer
Requirements
(CCR’s)
Key HR Business
Partner Outputs
Competencies
Career Paths
Learning Solutions
Communicating organisational culture/values to Employees 1
Keep abreast of new legislation that may impact on business 1
Preparing for different situations 1
Responding to organisational changes 2
Managing conflict between managers 2
Assessing Employee attitudes 2
Enforcing standard HR policies and procedures 3
Resolving political problems in the execution of business plans 3
Respond to manager needs 4
Retention of talent within the business 4
Capacity building/Skills development 5
Quickly responding to employee needs 6
Communication around HR in general 6
Tracking trends in employee behaviours and attitudes. 11
Keep the line updated on HR initiatives 11
Prioritizing across HR Needs 13
Utilising new business strategies 25
Developing the next generation of leaders 30
Identifying talent issues before they can impact on the business 32
Identifying HR Metrics 35
Adjusting HR strategies to respond to changing business needs 42
Understanding how HRB’s can support the business 43
Redesigning Organisational Structure around strategic objectives 48
Understanding the Talent needs of the business 54
CCR TOTAL

7. Top HR priorities
•Quality and consistency in HR practice
•Skills development
•Sound people management practices
•Managing HR risks at municipalities
•Good employment relations
•Performance management
•Employee wellness at municipalities
•Building high performance municipalities
•Evaluating and measuring HR impact

8. PARADIGM SHIFT
OPERATIONAL MINDSET
•Day-to-day tasks
•Transactional HR
•Getting things done
•Crisis reactive management
•Doing things now
•Training for tasks
•Managing people
•Internal focus
•Short-term measures
STRATEGIC THINKING
•Long term priorities
•Transformational HR
•Creating value
•Proactive management
•Planning things for future
•Organisational capability
•Leading people
•External focus
•Strategic measures -metrics

9. Competency levels of the top 10 HR priorities
Priority Area
Priority Weight
Competency Weight
Priority Rank
Competency Rank
Creating a high-performance culture / Performance management
3.91
3.42
1
6
Leadership and management development
3.79
3.36
2
8
Skills development
3.77
3.58
3
3
Focus on corporate values, ethics
3.71
3.45
4
4
Industrial / Employee relations
3.69
3.70
5
2
Customer service / relations
3.68
3.43
6
5
Employee engagement
3.68
3.35
7
9
Change management
3.68
3.22
8
16
Crafting and implementing HR strategy
3.64
3.40
9
7
HR policies and procedures
3.62
3.71
10
1
HR Survey (2011)

10. BUSINESS STRATEGY –HR BUSINESS ALIGNMENT
❶Strategic
HRM
❷Talent
Management
❸HR Risk
Management
HR ARCHITECTURE
HR VALUE &
DELIVERY PLATFORM
❹ Work- force
planning
❺
Learning
❻
Perfor- mance
❼
Reward
❽
Well- ness
❾
ERM
❿
OD
⓫HR Service Delivery
⓬
HR Technology
(HRIS)
Prepare
Imple-
ment
Review
Improve
⓭HR MEASUREMENT
HR Audit: Standards & Metrics
H R C O M P E T E N C I E S
© SABPP HRM SYSTEM STANDARD MODEL

11. HR as change agents
•HR practitioners know what goes wrong in organisations
•They identify the need for change
•They build knowledge and skills
•They work with people problems and complaints
•The know the gaps in organisation culture
•They have the knowledge to improve the status quo
•They should drive HR standards & audits

12. HR Standards -Catalyst for change
•Applying a professional approach to HR management
•Changing current approaches to HR management at municipalities
•HR professionals as change agents
•The HR standards become the catalyst for change (no need to waste time reinventing the wheel)
•Strive towards getting basics right first and then driving excellence going forward

13. HR standards at municipalities
•The need for HR professionalism according to nationally agreed HR standards of practice
•Implementing sound HR management in all municipalities
•Building consistency in HR practices
•Providing a framework that can inspire HR to improve current practice
•Standards can be audited

14. Globally standards are a framework for consistency & continuous improvement and managing risk through controls
“Consistency is far better than rare moments of greatness “
Strengthening the human factor in management systems

15. Why HR auditing?
•“HR Auditing crosses the boundaries between HR management and auditing… it can be a suitable method for evaluating the contribution of HR activities to organisational objectives assessed on the basis of value for money.”–Abstract from Dissertation; Chris Andrews: Bond University.
•This model provides HR Professionals with a robust, risk-based framework to ensure an integrated, aligned and well-governedapproach to auditing the National HR Standards.
•Ensures that HR controls qualityand consistencyin accordance with the spirit of good governance as documented in King III.
•Focus on strengtheningthe HR Business Partner philosophy without compromising the principles of quality and independence.

16. HR audits –the future
•HR audits will be implemented to audit organisations against the HR standards
•Audits provide independent verification of the quality of HR practice, and to highlight gaps and opportunities for improvement
•National HR audits will make benchmarking so much easier
•The HR practitioner is empowered to act on the results of audits

17. Guidelines for HR change agents
•Internalise the HR standards at your municipality
•Ensure that all HR practitioners have knowledge of the HR standards
•Improve all aspects of HR according to the standards
•Get line management involved
•Do an HR standards self-assessment
•When ready, go for external HR auditing

18. Conclusion
HR practitioners should be change agents to raise the bar on HR practice.
We need to improve the quality of HR practice at local government level if we are serious about service delivery in our cities and towns. This is the opportunity for HR to step up and deliver high impact HR. Thank you for joining us on the HR standards and auditing journey.