HR-strategen i kommunal verksamhet - Byråkrat eller professionell?

Abstract

During the last two decades the HR-function has moved from being operational to focus more on strategies and business orientation. There are several reasons why the HR-function has changed focus, one is that HR has received criticism of not contributing to business profits (Cunningham 2016; Pynes 2009). To counter this criticism Ulrich et al. (2013) constructed a model: HR-transformation (HRT). HRT means that the HR-function delegate responsibility and operative work to line managers in order to be able to focus on strategic parts of how to manage employees at a business level, called Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM). HRT has resulted in a HR-function that fights to strengthen their existence and contribution to the business. In order to legitimize their contribution, the HR-function and the researchers on the HR-field has focused on strengthen their profession (Boglind et al. 2014). The HRT trend is suited for the private sector considering its business focus, but has also entered the public sector where HR-personnel has a strategic role rather than operative (Cunningham 2016). The public sector in Sweden is, opposite to the private, driven and controlled by politicians to ensure welfare and democracy (Karlsson 2007). To ensure democracy and welfare in an effective way the public sector is organized according the bureaucratic governance. The employees in the public sector are therefore regulated by political decisions, laws and transparency to citizens (Hall 2012; Karlsson 2007). The bureaucratic ideas where the citizens right to good welfare is central and the ideas in SHRM where the central focus is to reach business profits can be difficult to reconcile (Knies, Boselie, Gould-Williams & Vandenabeele 2015). Furthermore the definition of what HR-strategies are provided by Ulrich et al. (2013) is constructed in a way that is suitable for the private sector. The fact that this definition is dominating the HR-field and HR-personnel makes it interesting to investigate in the public sector where this definitions suitability could be questioned. Therefore this study aims to examine if HR-personnels working with strategies within recruitment in non profit public organizations, act according to their profession or to the bureaucratic shape that public organizations are built upon. The study has been examined through a qualitative method where eight HR-personnel in nonprofit organizations within the public sector has been interviewed. The result reveals that the majority of the HR-personnel acts according to their profession which means that they make decisions based on their expertise, knowledge and experience. There were also found HR-personnel acting according to the bureaucratic shape of the public sector; these persons act based on regulations and laws from the society and politicians. The conclusion drawn from the study is that there are more ways to define SHRM than the definition Ulrich et al. (2013) provides and that HR-personnels strategic work, in the public sector, should focus on ensuring welfare and democracy, not business profits. Future studies should investigate how SHRM could be described in other contexts, for example in municipally owned companies.