This survey report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development highlights the changing face of Human Resource departments as they become more strategic contributors to the success of the organization. The survey found that 53 per cent of organisations have restructured their HR function in the last year to become more strategic and over 80 per cent have done so in the last five years.

The HR function over the last three years has doubled the proportion of time it spends on strategic inputs. However, providing support to line managers and HR administration remain their most time-consuming tasks. Changes in the HR function have created a huge shift in the way it delivers services and in its relationship with the rest of the organisation in order to increase business focus. Today’s HR departments are often judged on their success in meeting operational targets, improving efficiency, performance and reducing costs.

One major obstacle preventing progress rests with the balance between what are and should be HR and line manager responsibilities for people management and development. Three-quarters of HR professionals would like to go further in the transfer of people management responsibilities to the line. The majority of respondents said that the most common difficulties encountered in restructuring the HR function are in defining roles, having insufficient resources, dealing with skills gaps and having ineffective technology.

They survey is available at: http://www.cipd.co.uk/surveys