So why go into HR?
Firstly HR is now seen as a profession, it can offer a structured and rewarding career path to those who pursue and succeed within it.
HR is also a profession on the up! Demographics show, as illustrated by McKinsey's study "The War for Talent", that there is a diminishing global talent pool from which an expanding population of businesses are looking to hire. On the assumption that recruiting, retaining and developing the best people makes for a more successful business, it means that the power balance will shift further toward the employee. Hence for organisations to maximise their success, they will need to ensure they make themselves as attractive to work for as possible.
HR will play a pivotal role in this, as people issues become an increasingly important of organisations' core strategies. A result of this must be to make the HR professions even more central to the business, increasing the number of HR Directors sitting on the main board, a major leap from 30 years ago when this was the exception - rather than the rule. Taking the leap one step further, the more HR Directors we see on the main board, the more likely we are to see Chairman, CEO and MD's coming from an HR background, which has traditionally been the domain of the finance or sales professional.
