TECHNOLOGICAL revolution and paradigm shift from production to service economy has put human resource as the key factor in industrial growth and economic development.

Countries with high economic growth like China are proactively enacting legislations and building institutions to optimise human resource development (HRD).

However, Pakistan has yet to take any foundational step for HRD on a sustainable basis. The country’s talent is getting drained and underutilised. As new budget is in the offing, policymakers should take a long-term view of people management and development issues and set aside some investment to resolve them.

In a fluidly changing global economy, HR professionals including practitioners, consultants, researchers and academia have the responsibility to create frameworks, for improving management and development of industrial workforce. For this transformation, they are expected to stay abreast of all advancements and contemporary concepts in their field. Owing to rapid scientific developments, the average shelf-life of a professional concept, tool or technique is not more than 4-5 years, after which it tends to become obsolete. HR professionals ensuring currency of their expertise can better serve the needs of their stakeholders.

For their self-development, HR professionals need a regulated HR institute at the national level which can work for the advancement of the profession, set performance standards and foster development of its members. There is no credentialing institute at the national level which can foster their growth and certify their credentials.

In the absence of a professional institute, the HR profession does not have a defined domestic body of knowledge. There is no structured mechanism for universities to align their curriculum with domestic industrial practices. Resultantly the imported taught material comprising HR best practices in developed countries loses its relevance, when transplanted locally with a disregard to local culture, demographics, economics, technological and legislative variables.

The graduating HR students thus land in industry with their sketchy understanding of people management matters and it takes them considerable time to come to grips with the relevant issues. Moreover, industries are also not able to fully capitalise on their skill set at the time of their induction into the job.

In the absence of a national institution, the HR profession has not evolved towards maturity. People management decision framework is still largely governed by subjectivity, gut feeling and instinct, unlike other professions. Voluminous HR policies and descriptive manuals lack consistency and objective mechanism to determine professional efficiency at operational level and justify spending in terms of return on investment at strategic level.

An institutional approach can help the HR profession for standardisation of its practices. It proffers plenty of advantages including reduction in paper documentation, decreasing carbon footprint created by business travel needs and redundant administrative practices, compliance of industrial laws, reducing cost of investigations and other regulatory responsibilities of government agencies charged with overseeing workplace practices. Standardisation of HR can offer broad, coordinating guidance to HR practitioners and harmonise disparate practices for the benefit of organisations and their employees. These things can be helpful in containing HR service delivery cost, improving customer service and enhancing business efficiency.

In absence of any institutional umbrella, the HR profession also does not have a code of ethics and standards of behaviour relating to fairness, justice, truthfulness and social responsibility. There is no platform for HR professionals for their mutual collaboration, integration and diffusion of local best practices.

One of the thorniest challenges to the profession is that its legislative framework is very weak and not responsive to facilitate global trade environment. Worldwide, countries are proactively enacting legislation to facilitate equal opportunities, ensuring employees privacy and data protection, health and safety, work life balance and diversity etc; whereas Pakistan is completely secluded and aloof from these imperatives.

The HRD ministry at federal level needs a paradigm shift in its thinking and action. The government must seriously consider setting up a professional HR body at national level, which can better serve the needs of profession by providing the essential and comprehensive set of resources and expertise. The national HR institute can be a focal point in framing human resource practices in congruence with our national requirement and also an advisory body to the government on vital HR legislative framework. After the 18th amendment, the labour function has been transferred to provinces and the emerging federal HRD ministry has a challenge to analyse the convolutions of HRD and take institutional approach for sustainable industrial growth.

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