Chapter contribution towards HR text

SurgeAdvisory Founders and Directors, Joseph FX Zahra and Maria Bartolo Zahra, have contributed towards one of the chapters in the recently published ‘Malta and its Human Resources: Management and Development Perspectives’; a 550-page text. The text looks at the human resource management landscape in Malta, which has been transformed by a staggering increase of foreign workers, a demand for more and new skill sets, and an increase in job mobility.

The chapter, written by Joe and Maria, focuses specifically on understanding the landscape of HR advisory and consultancy services in Malta and their benefits and risks to enterprise.

Consultancy has always played a key role in Human Resources (HR) and over the last three decades it has evolved with the transformation in HR management and development in Europe and in Malta. Consultancy which started as legal advice on regulatory issues to general managers or personnel officers in the nineteen sixties, moved to a more sophisticated service to enterprise seeking higher productivity and improvement results. Today the profession is highly fragmented with a few large consultancies and various small independents.  The industry is generally unregulated.

The market for advisory and consultancy services spans from the design of HR strategy, learning and development, talent management and retention, organisational change, recruitment, and remuneration and reward. In recent years, consultancy services also extended to the sub-field of HR analytics and technology.

With today’s pressing challenge to attract and retain talent and with an ever-changing and dynamic workforce and lifestyle, organisations are slowly, but steadily, understanding the importance of enacting HR activities – sometimes still on an ad-hoc basis or as the need arises. Outsourcing and retainer arrangements started playing a vital role.

The text is edited by Godfrey Baldacchino, Vincent Cassar and Joseph G. Azzopardi, all University of Malta academics. The text is available for purchase.