Moving away from being seen as a purely administrative function, the large majority of UK business leaders (83%) feel that HR departments clearly understand and contribute to the strategic direction of their business.
HR teams also play an important part in helping companies overcome the UK skills gap by attracting and keeping talent. Three-quarters (76%) of businesses believe the employee proposition developed by their HR departments to bridge this gap is strong enough to attract the right talent. Additionally, HR departments are the driving force behind internal training programmes that 75% of companies have put in place to give their staff the skills the business currently needs.
Ian Dowd, Marketing Director, NGA HR UK, said: "HR has always been a strategic business function but, as our research has shown, business leaders are only now starting to realise what substantial contributions HR can actually make to their business more broadly. No other department has access to such a wide pool of company and employee information that can be used to inform important strategic business decisions. It is great to see that HR teams are finally starting to get the recognition they deserve."
1 Research Methodology
3GEM Research & Insights conducted this research on behalf of NGA HR. Respondents comprised of 100 Chief Executive Officers, Managing Directors and Chief Operating Officers of organisations with over 500 employees, based in the UK.