Trends of the human resources management model in Brazilian companies: a forecast according to opinion leaders from the area

Abstract

This paper is the result of research carried out to identify trends of the human resources management model in Brazilian organizations. In order to do this, we employed a research methodology known as Delphi, which consists of gradually adjusting the perceptions of specialists. Respondents were selected using criteria that characterized them as opinion leaders in human resource management.

Having consulted more than 160 people, we observed that themes such as the management of competences, corporate education and encouragement for organizational learning will be gradually assimilated by companies. One of our main conclusions is that the change process in human resources has ceased to be reactive. Data relating to changes that occurred during the 1980s and 1990s showed that the function concentrated on internal restructuring, on reducing the number of specialist employees, on encouraging the outsourcing of operational processes and on establishing a new model for looking after in-house customers.

Keywords:

• Human resources management
• HR trends
• policies in human resources management
• HR models
• management principles

Notes

1 The DELPHI RH 2010 project – Human Resources Observatory is being set up by a group of professors from PROGEP (FEA-USP's Program for People Management) with the purpose of monitoring trends in the management of people in Brazil over a period of ten years.

2 Exame magazine is a publication widely recognized in Brazil for its penetration among executives. It publishes annually a list of the greater and better companies in the country, similar to that produced for the Fortune magazine.

3 The companies mentioned operate in the following fields: 3M (operates in more than forty markets, including pulp and paper, petrochemicals, hospital supplies, electric power, etc.); Carrefour (supermarket); Bank Boston (financial area); Sabesp (basic sanitation); Siemens (electrical and electronic engineering); Unimed (healthcare plans); Xerox – Brazils (document-processing technology).