Jibran Bashir

Since its inception, Pakistan has remained a country where every single system either it is education, economy, health or government administration all are in developing stage but have not became formally mature up-to the requirements. Similarly the Human Resource Management systems i-e employment laws, standardized Human Resource Policies in Public and Private sectors and HRM related education everything is as yet in its embryonic stage. Though the country has some stated Labor Laws but they are majorly focusing workman class (blue collar employees) and are majorly silent for knowledge workers (white collar staff). In comparison if we see countries other than Pakistan, the field of Human resource management is mature and developed in terms of systems and practices, and their HR professionals are skilled / trained enough to understand HRM in strategic and business context. In my view this distinction is because of these countries having their own very effective Human Resources Bodies developed by several HR Professionals which lead the HRM field in professional manner. Well established examples of these bodies are Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) in UK, Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) in USA, Human Resources Professionals Association (HRPA) in Canada, Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) in Australia etc. In Pakistan though some societies and forums exist for representing the field but their working scope needs expansion. These societies and forums are undoubtedly good in the arrangements of periodic meet ups of HR Professionals and some fine HR Conferences but as an HR professional I think that now it’s a high time to move forward on practical grounds. At present instead of some hot talks on the profession we in Pakistan really need an effective HR Professionals’ Body, which can genuinely work for the real time progress of HR filed in country by taking aggressive steps. I believe that the core requirement from this body would be to make the HRM field more mature through following contributions:

•       Develop and also advise the government regarding various standardized HR laws and practices for knowledge workers in public sector organizations related to Job Design, Recruitment & Selection, Compensation & Benefits, Training & Development and Performance Management.

•       Develop standardized Human Resource practices and guidelines for private sector organizations and NGOs, so that these guidelines must be compulsorily followed by organizations for improvement in their employees’ management context.

•       Introduce the concept of HR Audits for auditing the HR practices of private sector organizations as per defined HR standardized procedures where on clearing the audits the organizations are issued Human Resource Compliance Certificates.

•       Authenticate class room based HR Certifications and Training programs being offered to HR Professionals by different training institutions so that practical and quality HR knowledge and skills get promoted in country.

•       Certify the experience and knowledge of HR Professionals through various exam based certifications in Pakistan.

•       Validate the HR related degrees of Universities after checking their syllabus relevance with industry’s standardized HR practices so that Universities must impart practical HR knowledge to students and this validation can reduce the gap between industry and academia.

•       Publish various HR books, Research Journals and Magazines for promoting new knowledge in HRM field.

•       Give grants in terms of scholarship to students for doing their Research Degrees i-e Phds in HRM to increase local scholars in the said field.

•       Provide HR consultancy to local businesses of Pakistan in order to promote the HR culture and introduce HR standardized practices in small and medium sized organizations.

•       Provide platform and resources for the Coaching of Local Entrepreneurs and “Saiths” (Local Companies’ Owners) on people management matters so that they can understand the importance of Human Resource Management in their organizations.

•       Arrange yearly corporate and research based HR conferences in country, so that knowledge transferring remains continued and professional networking of HR People can flourish further.

•       Bestow HR Awards to high performing HR professionals / Consultants / Trainers / Researchers / Professors / book authors to motivate and recognize them for their real achievements and contributions to field.

•       Develop members of the body, give them various service benefits and engage them in different healthy HR activities.

Above are some of the do-able ideas in my opinion, which an effective HR body can do for the genuine growth of HR profession and practices in Pakistan. But the need is that HR Professionals of Pakistan both experienced and young from all over the country must volunteer and sit together to form this kind of an effective HR Body and try to get it chartered from government as well, so that one centralized regulator can contribute to enhance the HR field in Pakistan.

Key Words: HR Body, HR Standards, HR Standardized Practices