Leading HRINZ into the future

The most recent #nzlead tweet chat had HR professionals move the discussion around HRINZ, which was ignited by Richard Westney’s blog, forward to consider suggestions for its future direction.

“We appreciate the potential value that being part of HRINZ can offer, particularly for younger HR professionals, but there was an awkward silence in the tweet chat when the question ‘what does NZ’s professional body do really well?’ was asked,” Amanda Sterling, co-hostess of the tweet chat, wrote in her summary of the conversation.

While Sterling believes that HRINZ does some excellent work, she suggested that there is an issue when it comes to communicating that work. “When you’re in HR, I think you’ve got to get a handle on how we communicate the HR message when we’re working in a business, and it’s the same for HRINZ. They’ve kind of got to get a handle on how the different parts of the membership understand different messages,” she said.

However, Sterling also acknowledged that there is an onus on those in the profession to participate actively in HRINZ. “One side of it is maybe people don’t understand the good stuff that HRINZ are doing, but the other side of it is I think there’s maybe some passiveness around the membership,” she said.

Sterling emphasised the necessity for people to articulate what they want from the professional body because, before that happens, nothing will change. Although she admitted that it could be scary. “I can only talk from my own experience, but even just commenting on Richard’s blog, that was fairly uncomfortable for me,” she said.

At the same time, Sterling noted that HRINZ needs to be open to people’s feedback. “I think maybe there’s the potential for HRINZ to have different avenues that people can give feedback as well, so that they are comfortable doing that,” she said.

Suggestions for ways that HRINZ can add value to the profession, which came up during the tweet chat, included greater engagement with social media. “Twitter is a great resource for sharing information and building connections with people,” Sterling wrote. Participants also noted that work needed to be done to make the website easier to navigate.

HRINZ has already responded to this discussion. Board member Rachel Walker posted a comment on the #nzlead blog, thanking her for the ‘positive approach.’ “I can confirm that the HRINZ Board is taking this issue seriously and we are already discussing the issue,” Walker added.

You can read the #nzlead summary here.