The professionalisation of human resource management in South Africa as a strategy to facilitate ethical practice.

Abstract

Human resource management has made great strides as a profession in South Africa, from its initial function as the payroll department to now being a strategic business partner and confidant to the C-suite. This profession, however, faces its fair share of challenges. In particular, the issue of ethics and lack of professionalism has become a dilemma for the profession, which, together with the absence of statutory professionalisation, has made it increasingly difficult for human resource management professionals to survive this volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment within a South African ecosystem. While there is literature confirming that human resource management is in fact a profession, in the absence of statutory professionalization it is essential to explore the experiences and opinions of human resource management professionals who do not belong to a professional body, and to compare these with the views of those who do belong to a professional body, as well as the perceptions of clients of both professionals and non-professionals. In this research the first participant group is called nonprofessional, the second is professionals, and the last are the human resource management clients, without whom this profession would not exist. The framework and analysis that was applied in this study is a four themed framework used to investigate the participants’ understanding of general human resource management, human resource management ethics and the King Reports (with specific reference to the last King IV Report), human resource management professionalism and lastly human resource management professionalisation. The theoretical and conceptual model is based on a multilayer framework from the field of ethics, the sociology of professions, specifically from Evetts’ contribution on professions, professionalism and professionalisation, and finally, the SABPP Human Resource Competency Model. The data gathered from the in-depth interviews with participants was analysed using thematic analysis which generated the findings in the study. It is argued, based on previous literature and the data emanating from this study, that in the last two decades human resource management has continued to progress as a profession. There is a relationship between the professional development of human resource management and codes of ethical practice, as statutory professionalisation and ethical practice does affect human resource managements’ professional development. Lastly, this study offers recommendations for statutory professionalisation as a strategy for ethical practice in human resource management in South Africa.