PurpleLine Consulting

Jonathan Jordan is the UK Chief Executive of Burson Marstellar, the PR and communications company.  In his view HR has 3 functions.  In this article in Personnel Today, he explains these are:

• driving procedural efficiences in conjunction with IT and Finance (good that he recognises the importance of these functions working together to achieve efficiency)

• representing the view of the people on the front line; (this is an interesting one - perhaps through employee surveys or even HR by walkabout!) and

• spotting the skills gaps by having an eye on the day to day operational challenges as well as the business's long term strategy (a critical role for HR in my view).

Jonathan is clearly a fan of HR.  He says 'what excites me most about my own HR department is its willingness to embrace change'.  It's good to hear a positive experience of this!

He says if he were looking for a new HR Director he would 'want to see intellectual curiosity and the desire to ask questions, to find out more, and someone motivated by having a deeper understanding of the organisation'. I think these are essential skills that set the good HR practitioner apart from the others.