The best HR functions are breaking new ground so fast that theory has been struggling to keep up with practice, and the existing rhetoric used to describe what HR does “has become very unhelpful”, according to the first report of the CIPD’s Next Generation HR action-research project.It says the most effective HR teams are “developing new value-adding activities in exciting ways” and working with chief executives and others to lay the foundations for sustainable high-performance organisations. They “understand exactly how their organisation in their market facing their specific challenges can respond in a way unique to it”.