The HR Forum

Date: 19-20 Juny 2006
Venue: Feather Market Centre – Port Elizabeth

Theme: Re-conceptualising human resource management for purposes of improved service delivery

Background

The DPSA hosted the Public Service Human Resource Forum at Emperor’s Place in Johannesburg in September 2005 with the main topic being Human Resource Planning. Delegates indicated that this forum should take place on a quarterly basis as part of the roll-out of interventions to improve the HRM function in the Public Service. However, due to capacity constraints, it is not feasible to arrange the forum on a quarterly basis and it is proposed that the forum takes place, at most, twice a year.

This could be done by ensuring that there is one meeting every year where the focus is on the day-to-day human resource management challenges and another where the focus will be more on strategic matters that are aligned with the government’s programme of action.

The re-establishment of the Human Resource Forum is also in line with one of the recommendations made to improve the human resource management function in the Public Service. The aim of the Human Resource Forum is to:

• discuss/interrogate new policy initiatives by the DPSA. The main reason for this is that the DPSA is currently involved in a number of new policy initiatives such as strengthening the human resource function, the review of the SMS and the Single Public Service that should be shared with departments;
• continuously support and build capacity of human resource managers through sharing of information and best practice models as well as learning networks to improve service delivery;
• capacitate human resource managers on current human resource developments that impact on service delivery in the Public Service; and
• ensure that human resource managers in the Public Service have a complete understanding of Public Service human resource policies and are able to translate them into implementable programmes.