It is a well-established fact that Human Resource Management plays a vital role for organizations to deal with modern challenges and improve the overall quality-of-life of its employees as well as the society as a whole. To achieve this, it is essential to drive goodHuman Resource policies through effective change management strategies, state-of-the-art technology and sustainable HR models.In order to address these emerging issues of human resource management in a global context, SAPPHIRE organized a guest lecture for the students of XLRI, Jamshedpur by Dr. Richard Sibbernsen – Ex Vice President of Human Resources at the telecom giant AT&T and at Bellsouth Corporation.

 

Dr. Sibbernsen started his lecture by telling the students about his career transition from being a lawyer to the Vice President of Human Resources at Bellsouth Corporation. He then explained what the study of social science actually is and related it to the field of psychology and diagnostic tools. He talked about the complexities faced by business firms globally and quoted some personal experiences from Tenneco Inc. where he was the Senior Vice President of Corporate Relations. He talked at length about how to handle surprises effectively and execute HR processes flawlessly. He also stressed on the importance of sharing good practices of different cultures and effective communication within an organization.

 

Dr. Sibbernsen said that we, the students at XLRI, being the future HR managers should create a sense of urgency to develop HR practices. He supported his statement with the varied experiences he had at Bellsouth Corporation and quoted an example of global surveys as well as local inputs taken by the organization which encouraged open comments and feedback about leadership and its success in changing the attitude of top leaders. He listed out the top five qualities which are critical to a good human resource manager:

a)      Integrity and related it to being a good team player

b)      Technical capability

c)      Effective execution of organizational policies and result orientation

d)      Dealing with ambiguity – He said that in an organization one cannot get 100% information about everything hence it is important to take a sensible decision with limited information at hand

e)      Change management

 

He then talked about how line managers are talent managers whereas HR managers are talent developers and ended the lecture by emphasizing the importance of ruthless prioritization and factual analysis of situations for a Human Resource Manager.

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