There is a workplace revolution taking place and it is being led by HR professionals. With workplace initiatives, smarter hiring and excellence in day-to-day operational excellence industry priorities there has never been a more important time for project management in HR, as HR professionals adopt more project management skills to streamline their roles.
Whilst HR and project management are considered to be two rather separate things (they are not involved in planning and running formal projects), there are certainly elements of project management that work very well in the field of HR.
Why should HR professionals use project management?
When a HR professional uses project management processes within those tasks that they undertake such as annual performance reviews and salary reviews, initiating training and development programs and even team bonding exercises, they can ensure that they lower the risks associated with these tasks and increase the success.
The role of HR in the workplace is changing and HR professionals are becoming more heavily involved in projects across the organisation, there are times when they may be asked to work with an internal project that involves how employees work. They could also assist in staffing a project team, coach members of a team or even help with communication.
In order to work on and assist with managing projects, HR professionals need the right tools and knowledge for success. Whilst there is no requirement for them to have project management accreditation it can certainly be helpful.
The benefits
There are some benefits to be had from planning human resources in project management. In fact, at the moment the Project Management Book of Knowledge shows HR in their list of 10 major project management areas – so they certainly go together.
Under the project management sphere, human resource activities include planning, estimating and obtaining necessary resources for a project in addition to developing and managing a project team.
The outcomes of this can include:
- A structured resource breakdown
- A plan of resource management
- Staffing plans showing who is needed and when
- Surveys and ability tests and any other team performance assessment tools
These are all beneficial for anyone managing a team, whether they are in project management or HR. However, it is worth noting that many project management processes can also be beneficial to HR in respect of their activities and tasks where they can offer them a better structure.
The benefits:
- Producing a standard, written hiring process
- Establishing performance and productivity measures for a team
- Creating a recorded hiring process that is standardised
- Tracking the costs of hiring against forecasts and budgets
- Linking the costs of the efforts of Human Resources against efforts such as recruiting to the outcomes of the business
Whether you are looking to increase the efficiency of your Human Resources team and boost their overall productivity, either on a one-off project, or with their ongoing HR tasks, then project management processes can offer a real boost to the efficiency of the department, and allow them to achieve better results.
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