ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT AS A COP MATCH- MAKER

This paper proposes that improvement to organisational performance could be achieved through the use of the concept of Community of Practice CoP to manage organisational internal services. This means CoP of Human Resources and CoP of Line Managers may deal with each other on the basis of services requested, provided CoP of Line Managers is supplied by the CoP of human resources. The significance of this relationship is that requested services from the CoP of human resources must be in compliance with what the CoP of human resources can deliver. Naturally differences may exist between expected and offered services. These differences may lead to gaps in quality, cost and time of delivery of services. Furthermore, those gaps may also be due to mismatch between expectations and perception of organisational CoPs. In this research services are classified as above expected, normal or below expected level of service. This paper also proposes that unless the CoP of human resources has sufficient knowledge about the perception of what the CoP of Line Managers want, the organisation may face unnecessary liabilities expenses due to non-compliance, rework and waste of resources. A central issue is quality of the service provided and the associated assessment of its performance. Inappropriate assessment of the service performance could lead to mismatch or gaps between the expectation of the CoP of Line Managers and the perception of the service by the CoP of Human Resources Management. It is envisaged that this research could assist management in streamlining their operations and control of cost and avoid wastage. This should ultimately lead to improvement in organisational performance.