Model of Excellence: Excellent HR manager | Human Resource Management Assessment Answers

The Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) is the national association representing human resource and people management professionals. AHRI have over 20,000 members throughout the world and provide education and training services in HR and people management and business skills. AHRI also organises world-class conferences which bring HR practitioners together and holds seminars and networking opportunities all over Australia. AHRI also sets standards through accreditation of HR qualifications at universities across Australia (including LaTrobe’s HR degree), conducts research into people management practices, and assists governments in the development of policy and legislation that affects people at work.

AHRI have released a ‘Model of Excellence’, which explains the capabilities and behaviours of an ‘excellent HR manager’. This model provides a conceptual basis for the accreditation of HR practitioners and training offered by AHRI and universities. The model identifies 7 capabilities that are essential for HR practitioners (see https://www.ahri.com.au/about-us/model-of-excellence). These capabilities are being:

• Business driven;
• A strategic architect;
• An expert practitioner;
• An ethical and credible activist;
• A workforce and workplace designer;
• A cultural and change leader; and
• A stakeholder mentor and coach.

In this assignment, you are to select three (3) of these capabilities and address the following (in your own words, with referencing as required):

• What does this capability entail?
• Why it would be important for a Human Resource Manager to have this capability?
• Assume you are applying for a graduate HR position, and demonstrating this capability is one of the key selection criteria. What evidence could you provide to demonstrate you possess this capability?

• Business Driven

A business driven manager understands the organisational context and objectives. He/she also understands the operations, products and services of the organisation while favouring the organisational drivers, stakeholder needs and organisational performance. A business driven human resource manager will focus on measures to increase competitive advantage through human resources of the organisation (AHRI, n.d).

A high level of focus should be dedicated towards understanding and analysing the business environment that includes detecting changes with respect to political, environmental, economical, legal, social, technological and demographical changes. This will help the HR manager to be pre-planned and prepared for any changes that may impact the organisation due to changes in the legislative framework and government policies. Any internal or externals risk that may reduce performance of the organisation, human resource, governance and sustainability will be countered. Hence the operational out comes will be high in comparison to peer level organisation (AHRI, n.d). In short, being business driven entails adopting actions required for improving organisational performance even in an adverse business environment by banking on ones knowledge, pre-planning and guiding human resource, who are the real assets of the organisation.

I have conducted a leader back a school and have successful acted as a mediator between the school management and the students, being the school representative. My main focus was on increasing overall student grade (as required by the school management) by focusing on study group methods and games, gifts, competitions (combination of motivation and performance management) for students that led to an increase in the overall average score earned by the student, which also made the school management happy. The parents (stakeholders in this case) were also happy at the ignited interest in studies depicted by the students.

• Culture and Change leader

A human resource manager who is focussed on culture and change fosters a productive and sustainable organisational culture. The manager also has an understanding of the components required for a productive and sustainable organisational culture and delivers HR solutions that foster the required culture. They are responsible for determining, communicating and implementing various frameworks of accountability in relation to employee behaviour by using culture as a medium of translating workplace and workforce practices. They will also focus on providing tools to the employees that are essential for depicting the required performance rate. Equal amount of focus is also given to learning from past mistakes, practices and decisions along with communicating the outcomes of the process of organisational change (AHRI, n.d).

It is importance to focus on culture and change, because change is the only constant thing now in the organisations owing to globalisation and technological developments. Hence owning and creating a culture including multiple aspects of employees will help in identification of all employees in relation to the organisational culture and hence will motivate them to input their tremendous knowledge and effort towards sustainable development of the organisation. Training and development enables employee performance towards employee engagement and achievement of organisational goals. He/she also communicates the outcome of change to the organisation and applied the learning from change experiences. In short, being a culture and change leader is important for predicting and implementing organisational change while teaching and equipping the employees in favour of sustainable development (AHRI, n.d).

While being the student representative, the implementation phase or the pilot phase of study group practice was difficult, as the concept had to be brought into a reality. There was a stress on resource requirements, transportation plan, and parental permission, funding for them. Conducting a food fest that helped to gather funding for the study group did the initial pilot study. The school management and the parents association provided the funds at later stages. The students were motivated about the fun and companionship idea behind study group and hence provided with the initial push, their performance including mine improved substantially.

• Expert practitioner

An Experts practitioner builds, maintains and applied HR knowledge to people management. It also requires an understanding on how business decisions can impact the design, culture and business performance of the organisation. The practitioner also requires pragmatic and effective problem solving capacity (AHRI, n.d).

Being an expert practitioner is extremely important to understand the actual potential of the organisation and accommodate technical and practical that will arise in realising the potential through knowledge of HR. it also helps in anticipating the global trends along with technological changes, and their effect on the organisation and its employees. Being an expert practitioner is extremely essential to adapt theories to enhance performance in the scenario of a given organisational data, performance indicators, and other measurements. An in depth knowledge of HR will also help towards resolving grievance of employees, practicing negotiation and mediation to enhance harmony between employees and organisation (AHRI, n.d).

While being the student representative I was clear about having to communicate to multi-cultural students, and providing additional value to the school in comparison to other representatives. I got complimented for clear communication that involved both student bodies and the school management. Students commented of me being a positive influence on them because of the people skills and sensitivity I had on their requirements. None of this would have been possible without focussing on the mindset of both the students and school management.