Outsourcing and shared services are not a threat but an opportunity for managers of council HR departments, the president of their professional association told their annual conference last week. Stephen Moir, president of the Public Sector People Managers' Association and head of HR at Cambridgeshire CC, told its Brighton conference: ‘The public sector efficiency agenda, and the prospect of shared services or outsourcing, are not threats to HR delivery but are, instead, opportunities to improve the way in which people-management capacity and expertise is sourced and deployed back into our organisations. He added: ‘If only HR professionals are prepared to actively get to grips with these issues, to lead and shape them, rather than being the passive recipients of imposed change led by others, especially the uninitiated who have no understanding or appreciation for what good people management looks or feels like, and wouldn't recognise it if it hit them in the face.' Mr Moir said the profession was at a ‘crossroads', adding: ‘Down one path is the road to extinction and becoming the fossils of tomorrow. Down the other path is the more strategic role for HR, where it really does engage with and align to corporate strategy and supports organisational development and change management across the workforce.' He added: ‘The path I choose and the path I believe that all HR professionals, chief executives and councillors or authority members should also choose for their HR department, is the path that is probably the hardest to take – the evolutionary one towards a more strategic role for HR, perhaps delivered through a smaller function than at present.'
