Exploring the Work of Human Resource Professionals

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Introduction

This special issue (SI) aims to deepen our understanding of Human Resource Management (HRM) and Human Resource Development (HRD) as practice, highlighting HR professionals’ daily work, actions, and decision-making processes. By focusing on HRM as a practice, the special issue seeks to bridge the gap between theoretical frameworks and the lived realities of HR work. It intends to illuminate the complex, nuanced ways HR professionals contribute to organizational goals, facilitate employee development, and address dynamic workplace challenges. Contributions on how HR professionals are experiencing the challenges and opportunities associated with AI’s growing influence across HR functions are particularly welcome. 

To achieve these aims, the SI invites papers that explore diverse perspectives and methodologies, including qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods studies, literature reviews and conceptual papers that analyze the day-to-day activities of HR practitioners. By presenting insights into routine HR practices, this SI will offer valuable implications for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, fostering a richer, practice-oriented understanding of HRM grounded in HR professionals’ everyday experiences: opportunities and challenges. 
This SI offers an original contribution by focusing specifically on HRM as practice, a perspective that foregrounds HR professionals’ daily, often overlooked work. While much HR research emphasizes strategic functions or organizational outcomes, this issue shifts attention to the practical, hands-on aspects of HR work, exploring how HR professionals shape and respond to organizational needs in real-time, especially in the context of using AI across most HR functions. 

Through in-depth explorations of daily routines, interactions, and decision-making processes, the SI provides fresh insights into HR complexities and informal aspects rarely captured in strategic discussions. This approach will reveal how HR professionals navigate tensions, make quick adjustments, and foster employee growth on a practical level, enriching theoretical discussions with concrete examples. This contribution enhances the academic field and provides practitioners with a more relatable, grounded understanding of HR work as a dynamic and impactful practice. The need for this SI is underscored by a growing recognition within HRM and HRD literature of examining HR as a lived, practice-based field. Additionally, societal trends, such as AI, hybrid work environments, digitalization, evolving workforce expectations, and enhancing equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), with ever-increased focus on neurodiverse and refugee employees, place new demands on HR professionals, intensifying their need to navigate complexities in organizations. Previous studies highlight the shift from viewing HR solely as a strategic function to understanding the daily actions and decisions that drive effective HR work:

Espegren, Y., & Hugosson, M. (2023). HR analytics-as-practice: A systematic literature review. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOEPP-11-2022-0345 
Ferm, L., Wallo, A., Reineholm, C., & Lundqvist, D. (2023). Defender, Disturber or Driver? The ideal-typical professional identities of HR practitioners. Personnel Review, 53(6), 1524–1541. 
Häll, A., Tengblad, S., Oudhuis, M., & Dellve, L. (2023). How hard can it be? A qualitative study following an HRT implementation in a global industrial corporate group. Personnel Review, 52(5), 1632–1646. 
Wallo, A., & Coetzer, A. (2022). Understanding and conceptualising the daily work of human resource practitioners. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 10(2), 180–198.

List of Topic Areas

DAILY PRACTICES AND CORE FUNCTIONS OF HR 

• Daily practices of HR professionals (routine tasks, interactions, and informal practices defining HR’s day-to-day work). 
• HR as mediators in manager-employee relationships (facilitating communication, conflict resolution, and relationship-building). 
• Performance management and feedback processes (supporting evaluation, feedback, and developmental coaching). 
• Crisis management and resilience building (responding to crises and building workforce resilience). 
• How AI is impacting daily practices and core functions (pros, cons, challenges and skills/confidence gaps faced by HR practitioners). 

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT, EMPLOYEE SUPPORT AND WELLBEING 

• HR’s role in employee well-being and engagement (supporting mental health, work-life balance, and engagement). 
• Facilitating competence development and continuous learning (fostering employee learning and development). 
• Addressing equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) (promoting inclusivity, reducing inequalities, and creating supportive cultures). 

HR’S ROLE IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND ADAPTABIILTY 

• Supporting the digital transformation (managing digital tools, virtual collaboration, and workforce adaptability). 
• Collaboration and networking within HR (collaborating across departments and networks for enhanced HR effectiveness). 
• Integrating AI into HR functions, especially concerns around potential biases in algorithms in attraction, recruitment and selection. 

PROFESSIONAL AND ETHICAL DEVELOPMENT IN HR 

• Competence development for HR professionals (continuous learning and skill enhancement to keep up with industry demands and new technology). 
• Ethical challenges and decision-making in HR (navigating ethical dilemmas like privacy concerns, including challenges associated with AI). 
• Leadership styles in HR practice (applying diverse leadership approaches to influence culture and employee relations). 

PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AND ROLE NAVIGATION

• Work identities of HR professionals (balancing roles as strategic partners, employee advocates, engagement with trade unions).

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here.

Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here.

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”. 
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Closing date for manuscripts submission: 31/08/2025