Perceptions of the role and contribution of human resource practitioners in a global petrochemical company

Abstract

The value-adding contribution of human resources departments in organisations has often been questioned. It is not clear whether human resource practitioners are adding value according to organisational managers’ expectations. The objective of this study was to compare the perceptions of human resource practitioners in a global petrochemical company concerning expected and real contributions to business performance with those of their internal clients. Stratified samples of human resource personnel (N = 128) and their internal line customers (N = 67) were taken. The Human Resource Role-Assessment Survey was administered. The results showed that human resource practitioners and their line customers agree on the importance of the human resources roles that enable business performance, indicating that human resource practitioners have a good understanding of their job requirements. However, both human resource practitioners and their line customers perceive the performance of human resource practitioners to be average, which is lower than the expected level of performance as indicated by importance scales.