Human resources departments don’t get any respect. Employees generally give them a wide berth, while senior management and the C-suite tend to dismiss their contributions. Yet these unloved professionals perform a more extensive and valuable role than they get credit for. Some workers’ gripes are valid, but others derive from an outdated or limited understanding of the HR function.
Employees might assume that HR’s main purposes are hiring and firing, along with pushing papers needed for benefits, vacation days and workplace safety. Its expertise is overlooked in conflict resolution and mediation, coaching and development, job rotations, 360-degree feedback and succession plans. Contemporary HR is keenly focused on employee satisfaction, engagement and retention. Much of its activity occurs behind the scenes, from legal compliance to operating as a brand ambassador.
What’s the beef?
The complaints are loud. In particular, employees regard HR as a mouthpiece to serve management rather than to support the workforce itself. According to Harvard Business Review, 37% of those surveyed believed HR was advocating primarily for the company. In other words, HR, as they believe, is more predisposed to do the boardroom’s dirty work than interact with the staff. They feel bossed around, as they gripe, and made to waste effort on annoyances such as documenting minor transgressions or requests.
Workers realize that the HR managers who pester them are well compensated. Diversity, equity and inclusion and employee experience managers, chief people officers, heads of rewards or vice presidents of talent acquisition are some of the most dynamic roles; they can earn from $283,000 to $498,000 a year, reports the Academy to Innovate HR.
Some insist HR’s central mission is to protect the company from lawsuits. They see HR managers’ mission as keeping their jobs, increasing their salaries and landing the next promotion. That means currying favor with top brass more than promoting harmony across the organization. Meanwhile, buried in administrivia such as dress codes and identification cards, they ignore serious problems, such as letting incompetent and abusive supervisors get promoted, and turn to nitpicking. Politics and their status override team welfare, while they appear most interested in maintaining uniform processes.
Pity the poor HR professionals
The HR department knows its frustrations. It finds itself trapped between the staff and the corporate honchos. On the one hand, HR teams face mistrust and lack of respect from employees; on the other hand, senior management does not listen, does not recognize their work and refuses to learn from them or take them seriously.
The pressures ebb and flow with economic cycles. When companies are caught in labor squeezes, they rediscover the usefulness of HR; when the economy slows and labor is freely available, HR is seen as more of a nuisance again. For example, in the 1950s, 90% of positions were filled internally. By the 1970s, firms could hire all the staff they needed in a faltering economy and HR departments lost their glamor. Today, with only a third of hires still internal, executive search firms fill most senior vacancies.
HR is not a profit center, so it typically takes a back seat to sales. Indeed, the CEO may seem distant and can benefit from contact with the employee pulse of corporate culture.
Get proactive
Both sides must shift their mindsets. If HR is brought in sooner, it can become more proactive and less reactive. Senior management should learn to treat HR as a partner and strategic adviser. When personnel tasks get shunted onto busy line managers, HR could start trying to educate executives on people management.
First, though, HR must address the discontent, finding the right balance between policies and people. Instead of focusing on minor flaws such as punctuality, why not prioritize emphasis according to relative firmwide impact?
The HR ranks may have to raise their competency, especially if their backgrounds have been in accounting, administration or other unrelated fields. Honesty is key. To discourage unfairness and preferential treatment, HR should be a stickler and document everything in writing. Keeping in cahoots with management, tempting as it may be, does not solve all problems. At the same time, HR must learn to speak the CEO’s language of profit without losing sight of the human side.