The world of work and the way of managing human talent have changed drastically in recent years as a result of technological advances and market competition.
Just 10 years ago, succession planning and empowering leaders with the skills needed to succeed were top challenges for HR departments.
Now, trends say that organizations see the growing competition for qualified employees as their main challenge. Also, the workplace is much more focused on the well-being of talent. This has motivated to change the conception of Human Management within organizations, assuming new roles and being a strategic piece in the business.
Uruguay is no stranger to this evolution and, in this 2022, human management as we know it celebrates 50 years.
In this context, on January 21, 2022, the Association of Uruguayan Professionals in Human Management celebrated half a century of existence. The association is recognized by national authorities, opinion leaders, businessmen, social and union organizations, the media and public opinion in general as the benchmark institution in the area of human management in Uruguay.
ADPUGH
ADPUGH Anniversary
These 50 years have been possible thanks to the commitment, dedication and the work carried out by many of its directors, partners, adherents, organizations, multidisciplinary meetings, which strengthened the profession.
On that January 21, 1972, the organization was founded as Uruguayan Personnel Administrators (APU), in a first meeting held in the facilities of the former Shell Club of Montevideo located on Bulevar Artigas (in front of the “José P. Varela” square). ”). There administrators, chiefs and/or personnel managers met at the request of the person in charge of the function in the Shell Company, Mr. Alberto Bowley, who was appointed as the first president of the institution.
This is how it began its activities in very difficult times for the country and companies in general, where the activity of the human manager was limited to administrative management, concerned mainly with records and welfare issues and was made up of multinational companies or some local ones of greater size. In this context, the colleagues faced the challenge of attending, in an inexperienced way, the labor relations between the companies and the unions of some factories. For this reason, in certain companies our area or sector was also called: “Industrial or institutional relations”.
The position that the personnel department held in any business organization 20 years ago had nothing to do with the position currently held by the HR departments.
Little by little, he has been focusing on managing people, seeking to meet the company’s objectives and increasing his influence in the organization.
We can observe the assignment of a new role to the Human Resources department. The functions assigned to this department differ from the classic ones at the beginning of the industrial revolution itself. Back then, a culture of total organization, control, and planning dominated; today other values such as mediation, integration or negotiation are present to better coordinate all the components that make up the organization.
In turn, the personal characteristics of each collaborator are increasingly important. As of the last decades, the main concern of the Human Resources departments was to be a participant in the general strategy, through the implementation of coherent actions aligned with the business and to become a fundamental investment, sitting at the decision-making table.
Organizations, in addition to relying on their financial capacity or product quality and innovation, have had to promote competition to get the most capable people. For this, the focus must be on attracting, retaining, motivating and developing talented people, applying effective human resource management practices. However, to achieve this it does not seem enough to simply give more power and influence to the traditional personnel department, but it requires changing the way of thinking about Human Resources Management.
For this historical review, not alien to the labor market of our country, we can underline that we celebrate together with the birth of Adpugh, the first 50 years of Human Management in Uruguay.
The so-called Personnel Administration progressively acquired a broad and outstanding professional, technical and ethical level. Simultaneously, university courses and careers began to be developed both in the country and throughout Latin America, with strong support not only from administrative sciences, but also from those directly linked to sociological, psychological and economic disciplines. Accompanying this progress, the organization was first called the Association of Personnel Leaders of Uruguay (Adpu) and later the Association of Uruguayan Professionals in Human Management (Adpugh).
Throughout history, Adpugh has held 25 national congresses, always with the participation of prominent national exhibitors from all disciplines, Latin American and European. In addition, the prominent role of the Uruguayan representatives in the activities of the International Federation (Fidagh), determined that Montevideo became the Latin American headquarters of Human Management on three occasions, organizing the inter-American congresses in 1984, 1999 and 2017.
In moments of commemorating the 50th anniversary of the foundation of Adpugh and the growth of the discipline in Uruguay, we believe that it has been carried out and continues to be built with passion, a stimulus at the service of Human Management and its development of the country’s organizations.
We must continue collaborating in the dignity of work, ensuring that, in our organizations, it is more humane every day.
The permanent challenge is to continue to be a space for integration and exchange, where Uruguayan Human Resources professionals choose to be trained and trained to make together a profession that collaborates with extraordinary results.
