with respondents from every region in the
world and comprehensive in that most industries
are well represented. This is the largest
global, comprehensive, and longitudinal assessment
of the HR profession.
These data enable us to answer two questions
about the state of the HR profession in
this leadership forum:
• What are the personal demographics of
HR professionals?
• What are the competencies of HR professionals
and how do they affect (1) the
perceived effectiveness of HR professionals
and (2) business performance?
1. What Are the Personal Demographics
of HR Professionals?
As indicated earlier, in the 2012 sample, we
have demographic data from 2,638 individual
HR professionals. With our 25-year study,
we can trace the evolution of the HR demographics
from 1987 to 2012. Table III reports
these results and offers a number of insights:
• Feminization of the profession. In the last 15
years (from 1997 to 2012), the percentage
of males in HR has dropped from 70 percent
to 38 percent, and females increased
from 30 percent to 62 percent. Clearly,
women are moving into HR in increasing
numbers. This trend is amplified in more
recent years from 2007 to 2012. It is also
interesting to note that the non-HR associates
are 69 percent males, which means
that often female HR professionals are
working with male associates.
• Education of HR professionals. Over the 25
years, HR professionals tend to be highly
educated. This continues in 2012, with 51
percent of the HR professionals having
graduate degrees and 39 percent college
degrees. This indicates the high education
expectations for HR professionals in today’s
market. It may also indicate a bias in
this sample, being more focused on more
educated HR professionals.
• Career patterns for HR professionals. As economic
demands force HR to do more with
less, and information technology and outsourcing
change the size and shape of HR
organizations, HR professionals are increasingly
individual contributors who offer
specialist insights (34 percent). At least according
to our longitudinal research, HR
careers may more likely be within a functional
specialty than leadership roles in HR.
We may infer that, to a significant extent,
this is associated with increasing spans of
control, and reduced layers, within HR.
• Years in HR profession. In the last 15 years,
we have found an increasing number of
HR professionals in HR positions less
than 5 years (25 percent). This may indicate
the growth of the HR profession or it