If you have a thick skin, you may find an online message board set up by the Financial Times group of papers interesting. If you dare, go to http://forums.ft.com, and use the “forums selector” to choose “Career Point.” This brings up the forum “Human resources: A career in crisis?” where there’s enough negative comments about the profession to make an HR practitioner spend the workday hiding under a desk.
Take heart, there’s positive commentary, as well. But, there’s a lot of complaining about poorly trained HR people, HR personnel held back by their own lack of ambition or intelligence, HR departments that want to be strategic but don’t have the prerequisite business acumen, “touchy feely” HR types who won’t let you fire unwanted/problematic staff and some self-centred whining by people who didn’t get hired. (There are complaints about time-consuming performance reviews — which is pretty unfair because they’re no picnic for HR either.)
One theme that emerges in the forum is the belief by some business professionals that managers can take care of their people just fine and don’t need any interference from pesky HR people, thank you very much. From selecting staff to training, monitoring, disciplining and recognizing workers, managers are in control and making things happen. These critics see managers as the value creators in an organization and the centre of employee relations. HR should worry about payroll and legislative compliance and leave employee issues in the capable hands of managers. So forget about all this organizational effectiveness chatter because you barely know what the company’s movers and shakers are doing.
This may be well and fine for high-performing managers who can bond their reports to them, but what about everyone else? If an employee’s manager is the main reason for staying with or leaving an organization, someone must be doing a bad job or turnover wouldn’t be a problem for most employers.
The truth is there are plenty of bad managers out there hurting the morale and productivity of workers. Frankly, if HR had the power to intervene without concern for senior management sensitivities, a host of poor managers across the globe would find themselves identified, tagged and dealt with. Instead they’re protected by apathy, low-regard for front-line staff, favouritism and protection from above and a lack of accountability.
Even with good managers who bring out the best in staff and truly require little assistance from HR, there can be concerns about the bigger picture. Fighting over financial or human capital resources can occur in the best of companies if a silo mentality takes root. Who better than HR to look beyond departmental human capital interests and see the bigger picture?
So, don’t let the ft.com naysayers get you down. They’re probably working for companies with serious personnel problems — they just need an experienced HR pro to explain it to them.
Take heart, there’s positive commentary, as well. But, there’s a lot of complaining about poorly trained HR people, HR personnel held back by their own lack of ambition or intelligence, HR departments that want to be strategic but don’t have the prerequisite business acumen, “touchy feely” HR types who won’t let you fire unwanted/problematic staff and some self-centred whining by people who didn’t get hired. (There are complaints about time-consuming performance reviews — which is pretty unfair because they’re no picnic for HR either.)
One theme that emerges in the forum is the belief by some business professionals that managers can take care of their people just fine and don’t need any interference from pesky HR people, thank you very much. From selecting staff to training, monitoring, disciplining and recognizing workers, managers are in control and making things happen. These critics see managers as the value creators in an organization and the centre of employee relations. HR should worry about payroll and legislative compliance and leave employee issues in the capable hands of managers. So forget about all this organizational effectiveness chatter because you barely know what the company’s movers and shakers are doing.
This may be well and fine for high-performing managers who can bond their reports to them, but what about everyone else? If an employee’s manager is the main reason for staying with or leaving an organization, someone must be doing a bad job or turnover wouldn’t be a problem for most employers.
The truth is there are plenty of bad managers out there hurting the morale and productivity of workers. Frankly, if HR had the power to intervene without concern for senior management sensitivities, a host of poor managers across the globe would find themselves identified, tagged and dealt with. Instead they’re protected by apathy, low-regard for front-line staff, favouritism and protection from above and a lack of accountability.
Even with good managers who bring out the best in staff and truly require little assistance from HR, there can be concerns about the bigger picture. Fighting over financial or human capital resources can occur in the best of companies if a silo mentality takes root. Who better than HR to look beyond departmental human capital interests and see the bigger picture?
So, don’t let the ft.com naysayers get you down. They’re probably working for companies with serious personnel problems — they just need an experienced HR pro to explain it to them.
