Practise prudent HR to weather harsh economic times : CIHRM President
The President of the Chartered Institute of Human Resource Management Ghana (CIHRM), Dr Edward Kwapong, has charged Human Resource (HR) practitioners to use their knowledge to guide companies and their employees to stay above the harsh economic conditions in the country.
The CIHRM President said the current economic challenges were harsh and had impacted seriously on employees in industry, as well as those in the public service.
Advertisement
However, Dr Kwapong said HR practitioners had the onus to ensure the attainment of organisational goals through efficient and effective mobilisation of human resources.
“This calls for innovation and thinking outside the box in maintaining harmony and keeping staff sufficiently motivated,” he said at the 14th Graduation ceremony of the CIHRM in Accra last Thursday.
The graduation ceremony, which is also the fifth since the institute received a Charter, saw 238 associate members graduating, bringing the total number of associate membership from 1,305 to 1,543.
Good ambassadors
In his welcome address, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CIHRM, Dr Ebenezer Agbettor, inspired the newly graduated HR professionals to step out and be good ambassadors of the profession that they had chosen and for which they were being honoured.
“You must stand tall as you need to distinguish yourself from the cowboys/girls parading on the corridors of industry. I encourage you to pay attention to HR value-added initiatives in the areas of agility, scalability and culture in the wake of the new narratives in the HR space,” he stated.
Dr Agbettor added that automation of HR operational activities, hybrid working, flexible working regimes, work-life balance, managing gig workers, rise in digital people management, digital/smart office environment and human/robot collaboration were some of the real changes occurring, that HR professionals were expected to lead a transformational agenda to manage the situation professionally to ensure organisational survival and competitiveness into the future.
Speaking on the theme: “Managing Talent in the midst of Uncertainties”, the Guest Speaker for the occasion, William Easmon, urged the new graduands to know who and what their talent strategy was for in the organisations they found themselves.
Mr Easmon, who is also the HR Director of Absa Bank, called on the graduands to create individual career paths for their employees, increase on-the-job training and create a learning culture and coaching.
He cautioned that modern employees had slippery feet so HR practitioners must find a way to keep them by engaging them, talking to them about their career paths and goals, avoiding biases, avoiding judging people by their appearances and ensuring the talent management strategy in their organisations was data-led.