Overview

The HR Society is dedicated to encouraging excellence at the “Hard Edge” of HR across the private and public sectors. Its role in promoting the place of HR in Strategy is highly topical, particularly with today’s emphasis on strategic partnerships and people related measures.

The Society benefits from members drawn from the senior ranks of the HR profession, academia and other contributors to value-adding HR strategy.

The Mission of the HR Society is to lead thinking and share good practice in the linking of people, planning and productivity, and in so doing provide a network forum for professionals working in this area.

The Society has associated links with sister professional societies - bodies dedicated to organisational effectiveness - as well as being a voice and stimulus for the HR profession.

A Unique Network Club for HR Practitioners

The HR Society and FiSSInG form a unique, personal and corporate network for members:

• Membership covering the UK's leading organisations.

• Private forums, meetings and briefings for members stimulated by leading speakers and forward looking developments.

• Organisational, Human Capital and HR performance benchmarking - provision of metrics and high performance practice.

• Access to private, original research, publications and HR reports

• Facilitation of real time policy and practice exchange between members.

The Club offers corporate, individual and student membership.  Members come from a wide range of business, academic and public sector organisations across the UK.

Member Organisations

Members of the Society and FISSING come from a wide variety of private and public sector organisations.  The following organisations indicate the scope of recent membership:

The Club operates to a code of conduct:

• All meetings are private and take place under Chatham House rules, to enable open and honest debate to take place.

• ‘Soliciting for business’ in any form is banned. (This applies particularly to any consultant participants whether presenters or attendees).

• Membership records and attendance lists remain the property of the Society and FiSSInG and may not be used by anyone – whether member or guest – for any business purpose whatsoever.

• This allows everyone – members, guests and speakers – to enjoy the Society as intended.

Activities

Apart from the valuable ability to network with other members, the Society provides organised events and publications as described below:

• President’s Forum - The President chairs a regular series of half-day discussion meetings at which a presentation is made by an authoritative person on issues of current importance. The Forum is for senior executives and attendance is by invitation. See President’s Forum for examples of past speakers and issues debated.

• Master Class series - this forward looking programme for enterprises is run as an annual series of workshop briefings.  See Master Classes.

• Practical HR Planning – this annual training programme comprises a series on one day modules in which practitioners and managers who are new to such planning are taught effective planning techniques.  See The Definitive HR Planning Programme.

• HR Strategy Meetings – organised by FiSSInG, these are one-off meetings on major issues that are critical to practitioners pursuing a strategic role.  See FiSSInG

• HR Benchmarking - the FiSSInG HR Benchmarking Club provides an opportunity to develop measurement and diagnostic skills as well as providing a large range of benchmarks for organisation, performance and Human Capital indicators.  See FiSSInG

• Publications - a wide variety of publications are available for members, either free or at highly discounted rates, from FiSSInG.  See FiSSInG

For current and planned events, please see Events.

Organisation

The governing body of the Society is the Council of Trustee Directors, elected by members at the AGM and chaired by the President.  The CIPD, ORS and the IES have had a standing invitation to provide representatives on Council since the Society began.

Day to day management of the Society is in the hands of the Chairman and her Executive Committee, drawn from members of Council.  The Executive Committee usually includes the President and Past President, Vice Presidents and the Chair of FiSSInG, the Society’s partner network of which it is part owner.  The Society shares its administration with FiSSInG.

A list of the key positions in the current running and direction of the Society is provided on the Key People page, together with brief bios on each.

The administration of the Society and its events is handled by the Secretary to the Council.  See Contact the Society.

History

The Society grew out of an increasing interest in the people dimension of the economic system during the 1960s – an interest that has re-emerged in the 21^st century as the concept of Human Capital.

The Society was founded (as the Manpower Society) in 1970 as a joint initiative of the Institute of Personnel Management (now CIPD) and the Operational Research Society (ORS).  It remains a company limited by guarantee and is a registered charity ~ Charity Commission Ref: 261023. 

The first President of the Society was The Rt. Hon. Sir William Armstrong and successive Presidents have been Baron Fulton of Falmer, Sir Dennis Barnes, Sir Leonard Peach, John Hougham CBE and, most recently, Dr. Clive Purkiss.