Programme 4 June 2013 |
The main event of the breakfast session though was the launch of the SABPP HR Standards & Metrics Project, which is a project to reach levels of excellence in South African human resource practice by developing an agreed set of national standards and metrics.
Strangely this is only one of three similar projects in the world, and the SA initiative is leading its Australian, US and Canadian counterparts so we might be the first country in the world to publish a full set of standards for our HR practitioners later this year.
Standardising HR practice could be likened to setting up a "Generally Accepted Accounting Practice" (GAAP) set of standards for HR which would clarify, for example, what exactly is meant by the term "Talent Management" which has almost as many definitions as the letters that make it up. Interestingly Softline VIP Payroll ran an HR conference at the beginning of June in which one of the speakers addressed the same concept ("Standard Integrated People Practice").
The basis of the project was the SA HR Competency Model developed by SABPP with input from over 1,000 local practitioners. There are over 23 HR competency models globally - South Africa is the only one with a competency called, "Citizenship for the Future: Innovation, Technology and Sustainability." The model looks like this:
Click to enlarge |