Contemporary HR practices in developing countries empirical evidence from Pakistan

Abstract

The role of HR is fast changing, Patty McCord – Chief Talent Officer of Netflix approach to hire, reward and tolerate only “A” Players, “fully formed adult, getting away with the performing tracking and letting go of the people best performing to best fit with their comfort rather than retaining them. (HRB 2014) is shifting the paradigm. The traditional role of HR is being taken over as business partner transforming the strategies into action partnering with top leadership. On the other side, third world and developing countries the organizations have even not attained the basic HR concepts. A case study was conducted on a group of 15 organizations comprised of MNCs, Public and private local organizations. The study was focused on examining the prevalence of organizational values, HR function, strategic Management, leadership and HR best practices. HR heads provided the feedback and the results analyzed by a focus group of 5 HR experts to examine the evidence of prevalence of HR practices. The study results revealed that Multinational companies both private and public are practicing  organizational values, HR function; strategic HR, HR best practices and leadership, partly up to 60%. Employees rate these companies as employers of choice. The local private organizations with entrepreneurial control and ownership driven, have the HR department but their compliance is restricted not more than up to 36%. However the strategic management that includes setting business plan and KPIs and monitoring performance reveals only up to 30% prevalence rate.  The low rating is because the process is intuition based and dominated by top leadership thought process and insight and lacks structured thinking involving HR and other stakeholders at the planning stage. Weak or no HR system in these companies cause talent drain that impact on organizational performance.