HRM Awards 2010: Accolading the Nations Best HR Practices

The Association of Human Resource Professionals (HRP) in partnership with Hewitt Associates India announced the fourth roll out of the "HRM - Awards 2010 - Super 10" at a Media Conference held recently.

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the HRP and Hewitt Associates of India, a leading Human Resource Consulting Firm of global presence.

Registrations are now open for Sri Lankan Public and Private Sector Business Organizations to enroll in the Competition leading to the adjudication of "Super 10" Gold Winners who demonstrate the highest professionalism in HR activities.

The Awards Ceremony will take place in May together with an International Learning Conference which aims to enrich the Sri Lankan corporate community on current and innovative Human Resource practices.

The HRP in keeping with its vision "To bring HR to the forefront", pioneered the National HRM Awards in 2002 has organized the event twice since then.

The HRM Awards, which benchmarks Human Resources Management in Sri Lanka, is expected to draw over 100 Companies for the registering and evaluation processes of the coveted Awards this year.

The "HRM Awards 2010 - Super 10", aims to identify and recognize "Best HRM Practices" in companies that develop employees, improve business operations and help gain and sustain a competitive advantage.

HRP has entered into strategic alliances with Hewitt Associates India, a Global HR Consulting firm as Technical Partners to this year's event to bring quality and transparency to the Awards and strengthen the professionalism of the local HR practitioners.

The evaluation process will place a special emphasis on the efforts and strategies adopted during the last two years to improve HR Processes within the organization.

The prospective outlook in the local economy and increased awareness about HRM Awards among the business sector will inspire companies that have undergone several HR Challenges and emerged successful during the past two years to showcase their best practices in HR Management.

Among the considerations for the proposed Awards is for Hewitt Associates India to create benchmarks and criteria for evaluating HRM quality and effectiveness.

Questionnaires will be prepared and sent to all companies that wish to participate, from which companies will be short-listed for competing in the next stages. Consultants will then prepare a detailed analysis by visiting the selected entities to validate the information provided in the questionnaire, after which the data will be passed on to an independent judging panel consisting of academics, industry leaders and global HR and business leaders for evaluation.

Neither Hewitt nor HRP will get involved in the final selection. The judges will consider a wealth of data that will be given to them and an overview of the organization's HR practices, which will be documented through the HR process inventory, executive questionnaire and based on site visits.

Ultimately, the judges will look for those organizations whose HR processes were the best and strongly aligned to business objectives to select the winners.

The winners will be announced in May.

HRM Awards Chairman Rohan Pandithakorralage said that the "HRM Awards 2010 Panel of Judges will constitute of eminent Sri Lankan academics and professionals together with leading International HR and Business Leaders".

The awards ceremony, which was held in 2007, attracted over 90 companies out of which 50 companies were short-listed and evaluated.