How Australia’s HR careers are rapidly evolving in changing workplaces

Many employees have a love hate relationship with their organisation’s HR professionals. They’re there in the good times – onboarding us to a new company, guiding us through hiring a team or advising on a pay rise. But they’re also on the frontline during difficult situations. When there are retrenchments or policies needing to be upheld, it’s often HR professionals delivering the unpopular message.

But what about those working behind the scenes? The latest State of the Human Resource Profession report, led by Deakin Business School’s Dr Justine Ferrer and featuring data from 390 HR professionals from across Australia, gives a snapshot in time of the profession right now.

Today’s HR workforce is 84 per cent female; however, it wasn’t always this way. The gender balance has shifted over the past fifty years. In 1976 women represented less than ten per cent of the workforce. By 1997 this figure had leapt to almost 50 per cent.

“It is assumed that women have a unique skill set that presents a natural proclivity towards HR type positions, given the required empathy, communication skills and maternal aspects of the role, and maybe this is why women make a strategic choice toward towards HR. However, the reality is both men and women bring complementary skill sets to HR,” says Ferrer.

Gender aside, the job itself is changing quickly. Sarah McCann-Bartlett, CEO of the Australian HR Institute says today’s human resources sector supports a mix of generalists and specialists. While mid-size to large organisations might have a mix of both (including specialists in wellbeing, employee relations, workforce planning and HR analytics), smaller companies differ.

“In smaller organisations there is likely to be a small HR team, or even a sole HR professional, who are HR generalists with the broad capabilities and knowledge to partner with the business and deal with a wide range of HR issues,” McCann-Bartlett says.

As line managers take on increasing responsibility for tasks traditionally executed by HR (such as hiring), HR professionals are moving into more of an advisory role than ever before.

“HR decision-making authority and contribution to the overall organisation is 1680283041 recognised as critical to the organisation,” says Ferrer.

But while HR professionals look after others, COVID was a difficult time for those in the industry. Ferrer says HR teams often “wore the brunt of the operational requirements” needed to help organisations through the upheaval. It was also HR professionals who helped fast track the flexible work options required early in the pandemic.