I believe the core spirit of HR has remained largely unchanged over the past three decades. At its heart, HR has always been about working for both people and the business. What has changed is how organisations have understood this role, and how they have adopted and adapted it to their own context.
In Nepal, one of the most visible changes has been the gradual elevation of HR within organisations. A wider range of organisations today gives HR greater authority and autonomy than before. HR is increasingly regarded as a core business function, and HR professionals are more frequently part of strategy-level discussions and business decisions. The shift is from seeing HR primarily as a support or administrative function to recognising it as an important business stakeholder.
The work of HR professionals has also evolved considerably. We have moved from simply generating and maintaining data to analysing it, interpreting what it means for people and organisational operations, and increasingly using it to derive insights and make informed predictions about the future. In other words, the journey has been from data to analysis, from analysis to insight, and from insight to anticipation.
Nepal, like many developing economies, has generally followed HR trends that originated elsewhere. This is understandable, given that
more resources have historically been available in other markets for research, experimentation, and the development of new management practices. However, the situation is changing rapidly. Nepal is now deeply connected to the global business environment. Information, ideas, research, technology, and professional practices travel much faster, allowing Nepali organisations to catch up with emerging HR practices far more quickly than they could in the past.
We can see this evolution in several areas. Organisations today are increasingly sensitive to diversity and inclusion, employee wellbeing, discrimination and fairness, learning and development, employee engagement, recognition and rewards, and social outreach. These concepts may not all be new, but the degree of awareness, attention, and institutional commitment given to them has certainly grown.
Technology has also changed the nature and speed of HR work. Less time is now required for many routine plans, policies, processes, and transactions. Automation has taken over a significant portion of transactional work, allowing HR professionals to spend more time on execution, problem-solving, decision- making, and issues that require human judgement.
There are some changes that are particularly noticeable in the Nepali context. HR today generally spends
competency frameworks, succession planning, employer branding, and employee engagement gained greater prominence.
However, the transformation was, and remains, uneven. Large corporations,
banks, insurance companies, multinational businesses, and some development organisations generally moved faster, while many smaller businesses continued to operate with relatively informal personnel practices.
SANJEEV SHRESTHA Director of HR, COTIVITI Nepal
less time managing trade union conflicts than it did in earlier decades. Performance management systems have become more structured and sophisticated. Many transactional activities have been automated or digitised. These developments have gradually freed HR from some of its traditional administrative burden.
Yet, perhaps the most significant change is not in the systems or technologies themselves, but in the position HR occupies at the leadership table. Organisational heads are increasingly treating HR as an equal business stakeholder. The expectation is no longer simply that HR should manage employees well; HR is increasingly expected to understand the business, contribute to business decisions, anticipate organisational challenges, and help create sustainable organisational performance.
The journey, of course, is far from complete. The maturity of HR varies significantly across organisations in Nepal, and not every organisation has progressed at the same pace. But if we look at the broader picture over three decades, the direction is clear.
The purpose of HR may not have changed much. What has changed is the scale of its responsibility, the sophistication of its tools, the expectations placed upon it, and, most importantly, the recognition that people and business cannot be separated.
HR becomes increasingly business- oriented
A mature HR function is ultimately expected to understand the organisation’s business model.
This means that HR leaders need
to understand revenue, productivity, cost structures, customer experience, technology, risk, and competitive strategy, not merely recruitment and employee relations.
This has led to a growing emphasis on HR-business alignment. Many organisations have been bringing HR to the strategic decision-making table. It encompasses strategic responsibilities such as workforce planning, ensuring the availability of personnel with the required competencies at the right time.
“At this moment HR holds a meaningful seat at the planning table, actively contributing to long-term organisational priorities, including crucial key decisions,” stated Kriti Pradhan, HR Manager at Quest Pharmaceuticals Pvt. Ltd.
HR’s strategic role mainly encompasses critical decisions and planning, including aligning with business goals and achieving results through strategic workforce planning,
talent acquisition and retention, shaping a positive and inclusive work culture, ensuring performance and accountability, and opting for data- driven decisions.
Late 2010s: the digital turn
Technology introduced another major discontinuity and leveraged HRM practices. HR information systems (HRIS), digital payroll, online recruitment, learning-management systems, and employee self-service platforms began replacing manual processes.
The emphasis shifted from merely digitising HR administration toward using data to improve decision-making. This gave rise to people analytics. Instead of simply knowing how many employees an organisation has, HR can increasingly analyse: • turnover patterns; • absenteeism; • recruitment effectiveness;
• training outcomes; • workforce costs; • performance trends; • employee engagement and • future skills requirements.
This transition potentially gives HR a stronger evidence base from which to influence senior management. However, it also creates a new requirement: HR professionals must become data literate.
COVID-19: HR’s human dimension and shifting world of work
The pandemic fundamentally changed the workplace. Remote working, hybrid working, digital collaboration, employee health and safety, psychological well-being, flexibility, and organisational resilience suddenly became central HR concerns.
The crisis demonstrated that an organisation could have sophisticated systems and still struggle if it could not maintain trust, communication, and
