Putting human resources on a higher level on the national agenda

Human Resources are to be placed at a higher level on the national agenda, according to Foundation for Human Resources Development (FHRD) president John Muscat Drago. Not only. The foundation is to be developed as the one-stop resource for human resources issues and services in Malta.

"Today there is no one entity capable of tackling every issue affecting human resources," Mr Muscat Drago told The Sunday Times. "If I have employed someone, have I drawn up an employment letter? In case of dismissal, how should I go about it?

"So, the idea is for the FHRD to be a one-stop resource - if not to provide the service directly, to give direction, so that human resource (HR) practitioners can just phone the FHRD for anything to do with issues within the working environment and they will get direction or an opinion on the aspects they need to handle."

Mr Muscat Drago was elected FHRD president only last year but his board has already started working on developing a new direction for the foundation with a special focus to raise awareness. "The FHRD is an institution that is crucial in Malta," he affirmed.

"It is an apolitical non-government organisation bringing together all the sectors involved in employment: unions, Government, banks, the tourism sector, the University, and others on a personal level. It gives a dimension to the HR impact on each particular sector."

While its long-term goals and vision have remained unchanged, Mr Muscat Drago said the orientation will revolved around two goals:

1. to put the HR agenda, including management development, high on the agenda in Malta on a national level;

2. to promote HR practice, and the HR practitioner's role.

In practical terms, the FHRD organises practitioner meetings six or seven times a year during which various experts, both local and foreign, discuss specific current topics related to the sector.

"So far we have focused on the HR practitioner as such," Mr Muscat Drago said. "However, we are now looking at the people on the periphery; ultimately, those who make things happen. In certain aspects, he is the HR manager but not in everything.

"You have, especially in Malta where you have many small and medium-sized establishments, many businesses that do not have an HR manager as such. So you will have the owner himself, who is responsible for the HR of his business.

"Take tourism: you have the owner in a restaurant who is the chef, the handyman, the waiter, who is also the HR manager. What we are projecting applies also to this person."

One seminar that attracted an attendance of around 200 was on the Employment Act. Mr Muscat Drago said the FHRD was the first to organise such a seminar. Other bodies then followed.

The FHRD has also worked behind the scenes to bring Government and unions together to make progress on issues related to human resources.

"It involved a certain amount of risk, which may have caused us to look overly presumptuous. But we did it, and it left its fruit," he said.

It is also in the education of HR practitioners that the FHRD is currently filling a void. It has become the local representative of the Centre for Labour Market Studies (CLMS) of Leicester University, providing courses from certificate all the way up to doctorate level.

This, he said, was also part of the FHRD's efforts to put HR high on the national agenda. "We need to have specialised people," Mr Muscat Drago said. "There are a lot of HR directors, HR managers and HR executives, but few have had the opportunity to be fully qualified in HR.

"We believe that people who are working in this sector do not have the time to leave their employment and seek full time studies.

"CLMS gives them the possibility since all its courses are based on assignments and distance learning. It's pretty demanding and the level is very high.

"So far, some 130 have attended these courses, including the latest intake of 15. The aim is to further promote the need for HR people to also be competent, certified and qualified in the HR field."

The FBRD board is composed of 12 people. Both the public and the private sector, including tourism, services and industry. are represented as are the two major trade unions.

Mr Muscat Drago explained that when Mrs Helga Ellul, the previous president, did not feel that after 10 years she should be reappointed, the board nominated him to act as president with the aim of widening that to include all sectors of employment, including services.

He is the first to admit that in the past the foundation may have been oriented more towards the manufacturing sector. It was even located within the IPSE building in the Marsa industrial estate up to last month (it has since moved to new premises in San Gwann).

The 'engine' of the FHRD is a small secretariat, currently headed by a co-ordinator with three full time members of staff, each with their own specified areas of activity.

A chief executive is in the process of being recruited. "The FHRD is constantly examining ways to be of greater service to its members," Mr Muscat Drago added.

Two ways in which the FHRD keeps in touch with its 500 individual and corporate members is through a quarterly newsletter and, more recently, through a Website: www.fhrd.org.mt.

"We want the site to be very interactive both for services, problems, information and events. What you see today is only a beginning but I can assure you that it will become much more interactive - the HR site in Malta."

Turning to the development of HR in Malta, Mr Muscat Drago said that both from a practical and strategic point of view, in the past 10 to 15 years, a lot of progress has been made.

"What is needed now is a big quality leap from the theoretical to the practical," he said.

"In Malta no one denies that people are crucial to the success of any enterprise. What concerns me is that a lot still needs to be done so that people are truly put high on the national agenda.

"Here, unfortunately, there are those who understand that when you put people high on the agenda, it means that you look after the welfare of the people, which is: look after them; motivate them because otherwise they will leave you.

"The fundamental strategic point we want to make is: without the people, in that sense, you cannot have a product, you cannot have a service, you cannot have quality. So, the people themselves are crucial, ultimately.

"This is where we have a big gap because there is no appreciation of these people's value in each entity, both large and small."

Mr Muscat Drago said that people unfortunately look on the "development" aspect of the FHRD as meaning training. "That is just one aspect. How about getting the right people in the first place? How about the involvement between management and the people? How about developing the motivation aspect?

"A lot still needs to be done in terms of making sure that the people dimension is discussed at board level. Unless people issues are discussed in a strategic manner even at board level, I don't believe that they believe that people are important."

Asked for the top three challenges facing HR in Malta today, Mr Muscat Drago said the first was the legal challenge, including Malta's imminent entry into the European Union.

"There are certain legal and basic welfare aspects related to employment which before we used to take for granted or say we would tackle later. It is unacceptable that people are employed without a letter of appointment.

"Also, very few firms practise HR planning to ensure that there is continuity among key staff."

The second challenge relates to the need to invest in human resources in the widest sense: time, money and resources. "People need to put their money where their mouth is. When you invest in HR and motivate your employees, there is no reason for them to leave."

The need to change people's mental approach to HR is the third challenge. This, he said, needed time and convincing, and the FHRD will be working on this in the long term.

"Any entity, be it government or private, looks at all of its resources. They look at the marketing aspect of their activities, the product or service itself, the finance.

"But it is people who should be put on top of all this because it is people who push all these activities forward," he said.