“Human Resources will become even more of a key importance for companies in the future,” emphasised Neil Roden, Group Director HR at Royal Bank of Scotland, during the annual HR Conference in Luxembourg, organised by HR One.

As a matter of fact, people are becoming more and more important due to talents shortage and organisations will need to get more out of their employees. Human Resources will have to support the challenges of the organisations and there is going to be an increasing demand for Human Resources specialists to be business oriented.

At Royal Bank of Scotland the situation has already become a reality. “Human Resources actions can not exist for their own sake. The HR organisation at Royal bank of Scotland is very focused, very business-aligned, structured and organised within the lines of the business,” Neil Roden explained. The Group Director Human Resources has been elected the second most influential Human Resources person in the world by HR Magazine. And for three consecutive years on the first place on the Top 40 of the Personnel Today.

Presently there are 1,900 Human Resources specialists working in the group's centres around the world. They have mainly lost traditional Human Resources tasks and they work on projects. One of the very important focuses at Royal Bank of Scotland Group is fostering the employee's engagement, including their satisfaction, commitment, desire and willingness to contribute to the business success.

“On the one hand people are company's bigger single cost, but on the other hand people who interact with your customers, people who sell the products happen to generate the revenue. So if you want to be a successful organisation, managing people differently seems to me a good source of competitive advantage,” Neil Roden argues.