Human Resources managers have been urged to uphold professionalism in executing their duties to enable their respective institutions achieve their goals.

Judith Uwizeye, the minister for public service and labour, who was yesterday opening a two-day workshop on the role of human resources managers in organisational performance in Kigali, said they HR managers are the backbone of a company’s performance.

"The first thing they have to do is to make sure that workers’ rights are respected. When workers are denied their rights, you can’t expect good output from them,” the minister said.

"However, this must be complemented with best practices and good leadership skills since poor leadership of a human resources manager can lead to poor performance of workers.”

Better management of employees leads to better output from them, which eventually leads to good performance of an institution, she added.

Stephen Nemeye, a human resource management specialist at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, cited several challenges facing human resources managers.

These include mismatching skills among workers, failure to recognise the role of human resources managers in appraising workers’ performance by some top managers and inadequate knowledge of one’s duties among some HR managers, which leads to poor performances.

Stephen Karangwa, the chairperson of the Rwanda Human Resource Management Organisation (RHRMO), said there is need for HR managers to work closely with their employees to jointly contribute to the achievement of company goals.

"HR managers should behave in a way different from the former chef du personnel (or staff supervisor) whom workers referred to as if they were there to observe only their weak sides. It is better for HR managers to professionally manage their employees basing on their capacities, behaviors and performance. They should not only appraise their performances but also recognise their efforts,” Karangwa said.

The workshop seeks to chart solutions to challenges facing HR functions due to trends caused by globalisation and changing market demands in order to effectively adapt to them through sharing experience.

Sarah Richson, an HR expert from Kenya, said human resource managers should be keen to establish a networking system that can enable them to share experience with others so that they can learn the best practices from each other.

RHRMO is made of HR professionals from public, private and civil society institutions.

It was founded in 2010 to create a national forum to promote and ensure that HR function is recognised and given the value it deserves as well as supporting institutions to achieve respective core objectives.

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