First we had Mother’s Day, followed by Father’s Day and even Grandparent’s Day. Then we had a move into the professions with Teacher’s Day and Nurse’s Day. Some would say special days help us show our appreciation of these important professions. Others may cynically claim them to be more of a marketing ploy by card sellers to widen their profit base, or professions muscling in on days of celebration to gain their own day of self importance. And now even the profession of Human Resources has muscled in with its very own ‘International HR Day’.
Monday May 20th 2024 marks this year’s International HR Day, a day “to recognise and celebrate the value and positive impact that HR brings”. Even the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), the profession’s U.K. professional body “join[s] the global celebration of the people profession… inviting all people professionals to be part of this year’s International HR Day”.
I have personally not met a single HR professional whose reaction to learning of this day is anything but squirms of embarrassment or laughter. Though that may be due in part to the circles within which I move.
Nevertheless, let’s take this momentous day as an opportunity to pause and reflect on the profession of Human Resources today.
So much of the profession appears to have been taken over by desires to ‘make the world a better place’, to ‘improve the lives of others’, ‘prioritising employee wellbeing, ‘driving social responsibility and sustainability’, and so forth.
These are not areas of focus I was taught when I studied for my postgraduate diploma in Human Resource Management. Nor I believe are they the subject areas most employers and business owners have looked towards their HR functions to lead or focus on.
The role of HR is to focus on the talent that is required for the organisation, from resourcing this talent, developing and managing it internally, to exiting the talent when it is either not needed or not working. It must be a value-adding function, that supports and assists organisational transformation and change, develops leadership and enables positive employee relations. And of course its function also remains to provide all of the administrative support that is necessary to facilitate these things. Unfortunately, this administrative support is so often the very thing that HR functions get wrong. Lack of focus and effectiveness on the basics is sadly not uncommon, with poor leadership of the function failing to ensure sound processes, systems and data, frequently resulting in error, delay and muck-up.
This results in the typical reaction to the bar room question: “And what do you do?” which, when responded to with “I work in HR”, typically receives a far from positive reaction. Usually a rolling of the eyes, with “oh no, you should see my HR department, they don’t get anything right, always messing things up, focusing on things they think are important but which frequently no one else does”.
During the 1990s and 2000s, the profession continually moaned about not being on the board, not being at the ‘senior table’. Maybe this was because they simply didn’t have the business capability to be there, maybe they were focusing on the wrong things. I believe the profession’s longing to be heard has now nudged it into trying to be the organisation’s moral compass, preaching to the organisation how it must be corporately responsible, put wellbeing at the forefront of everything, fighting for social justice both within and even outside of the organisation.
The profession loves a fad or a management buzzword, be it ‘Human Capital Management’, ‘Employee Value Proposition’, ‘driving social responsibility’, ‘driving sustainability’ etc.
Over the last five years, many HR functions have moved firmly into the arena of social justice, implementing numerous initiatives that drive ideological and political viewpoints. At best these initiatives are often just performative, shouting messages that may have little impact or resonance with their audiences. At worst they anger and demotivate some of their audience, even at times stepping over the line into unlawful activity. The latter has been shown in the litany of successful Employment Tribunal claims over the last year. These have demonstrated how many initiatives have represented quite hardcore and ideologically driven concepts such as critical race theory and gender ideology.
Though these initiatives may be well meaning, they are sometimes unlawful, are having negative impacts on many people – including in the minority groups they are often aimed at helping – and are moving HR into areas where it does not belong.
The art of good HR comes down to four things: strong understanding of the organisation, sound people leadership, good knowledge of employment law, and last but not least, a good dose of common sense.
Happy International HR Day to one and all!
Steve Chilcott is an HR professional of 30 years and founding member of Fair Job U.K., an HR consultancy aiming to depoliticise the U.K. workplace.
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It’s extraordinarily rare to find an HR official who understands the organisation, has any leadership ability, or any common sense. Some have a passing knowledge of employment law but, as an operational manager, I would much prefer advice from a genuine legal expert. The HR function does far more harm than good and it would be a good thing if it were abolished.
I preferred it when it was Personnel. But they made themselves the Guardians of Justice and All Things Fair and Good and now they even outsource their primary function: to ensure the business has enough people, recruited on the basis of ability alone.
Clown World
BBC FIVE LIVE NEWS….Contaminated Blood is the largest NHS scandal in history, apparently!
I’ll risk being called a conspiracy theorist by suggesting that the Cabinet Office will try to use the Blood Scandal to cover up or divert attention from the emerging Vax Scandal. “Nothing in politics happens by accident.”
“Nothing in politics happens by accident.”
Like the £10 bn compensation package announced a day ahead of the report. I don’t know who they interviewed for ClassicFM news yesterday but they gave the announcement short thrift.
Another decades-long multi-party government cover-up and there’s surprise that people are no longer trusting the government or anything they have a hand in?
Nor should the NHS be worshiped, they made us bang pots while they performed TIK TOK dances, along with democide!
Of course this is what is going on.
And a happy day to you as well – but you’ve avoided the common (somewhat pejorative) term “Human Remains” department.