The duality of employee perspectives and organisational requirements: a diagnostic framework for the international HR leader

Why do we love to hate Human Resources (HR)? The evolution of the HR function and the required focus and capabilities of HR practitioners remain topical despite decades of research and discourse. Traversing the duality of employee perspectives and organisational requirements upon HR, this research explores this concept with resulting recommendations and a diagnostic framework for the HR Leader.

The overall purpose is to contribute to the Human Resources knowledge and practice of HR professionals. The research aims to explore the role of HR Leaders and practitioners in facilitating transformations alongside providing targeted and timely support to the employees experiencing the transformation. Situated within a one-off organisational transformation for a large multi-national company located across Asia Pacific and the Middle East, it offers the distinctive triad of simultaneous perspectives from myself as the Researcher: - as an employee, the HR Leader, and the inside-researcher.

The research adopted a phenomenological, qualitative methodology, achieved in three phases. Phase 1 was the bespoke design of a pilot Masterclass, delivered face-to-face with 15 senior business leaders, which evolved into a series of virtual Masterclasses for 104 international employees. Phase 2 comprised focus group discussions with 40 employees and employee representatives in two countries. Phase 3 incorporated semi-structured interviews with ten senior leaders who had attended the Masterclass and externally with five peer-level international HR Leaders and one HR scholar. The collected data from the 175 participants was thematically analysed, resulting in seven identified themes with accompanying recommendations for the HR Leader.

A resulting diagnostic framework is presented that enables HR Leaders to traverse the duality of people and organisation requirements. Supporting evidence of the framework application within an international healthcare organisation during COVID-19 is detailed, demonstrating this research's broad and distinct contribution towards HR knowledge and practice.