Career Connection’s Managing Director,Madeleine Dunford
The worlds largest Human Resource Development Body,Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has partnered with Market leaders in HR services, Career Connection to improve the level of Human Resource management in the country and the East African region.
The move comes in the wake of competition among corporates aiming for business growth amid poor understanding of the role of progressive HR policies in the region. The poor understanding has impacted negatively on the employees side rendering them non committal to offering quality services and poor sustainability strategies of existing competition on the side of the corporation.
Speaking during the launch Career Connection’s Managing Director,Madeleine Dunford said the partnership will play a pivotal role in Business success through HR development in East Africa. She added that the desire for the roll out of HR programmes in the country was driven by the need for a broader look into the HR services and the desire for higher educational qualification. She reiterated that employee relations is very crucial for the company’s success.
“Companies are used to viewing HR’s as consuming more funds in the organisation. HR’s Globally and particularly in this region needs to change in the light of new demands in organisations to go beyond looking at structure, roles and activities to reach deeper understanding of what will make an organisation successful,” said Durnford .
In a survey conducted by the CIPD, including 1,500 HR professionals, 43 percent of the respondents agreed the purpose of HR should be driving the organization stability while 22 percent felt like the role played by HR’s was to direct employees to work.
Through the partnership the programme will offer 145 short and long courses in HR including HR strategy,Insight and solutions, organisational development and design, Resourcing talent,talent planning and management, performance reward and employment engagement among others.
Short courses will take a duration of one to five days while long courses will take up to nine months on duration.
On his part, head of CIPD training Andrew Spencer said currently HR activities are taken seriously leading to massive acknowledgment. This he said has been influenced by allocating the right people the right activities in the organisation.
“This means ensuring that talents are effectively recruited and developed, that the organisation is effectively structured and mangers are equipped to manage performance,” said Spencer.
Spencer said the programmes will also be localized to enhance knowledge and bring a reflection of the region to help in building capacity and change in East Africa, adding that it will move the HR levels to transformational role to help achieve sustainable organisation capability and performance.
“Materials are based on the latest global CIPD research but will be tailored specifically for Kenyan and East African HR professionals, the qualifications will undoubtedly uplift HR standards and best practice in the country and the region,” said Spencer.
With over 200 members of CIPD deployed in the country the partnership is targeting to train over 2,000 HR professionals from different corporations. Further the partnership is optimistic that the number will increase following the subsequent launch in other countries in the region.
Currently Kenya is recruiting more HR’s every year with the market recording a growth of 40 percent.
In the last two years Career Connections has seen 300 managers trained out of its 135,000 members in over 120 countries. The organisation also engages in the assessment of business executive and has maintained a rate of 2,000 executives annually.
