We’ve all had to deal with the HR department at some stage in our working life.

Whether it’s through the recruitment process, onboarding, Bring-Your-Pet-Day or when something goes wrong. In my vast experience, it is the most disruptive, ineffective and delusional department in an organisation. I have never seen one that adds any value.

I’m sure there are companies where this isn’t the case.

However, I personally have never come across one or heard of one that exists. It is not surprising therefore that Human Resources is apparently one of the most hated departments in any organisation: countless articles exist discussing this phenomenon. Is it fear? Ignorance? Or simply the outcome of repeated poor experiences.

So what is the trouble with HR?

Company Comes First

There is no doubt that the HR department’s primary function is protect the company from its own employees. This means that every interaction between the two parties needs to be in writing, recorded and ‘by-the-book’. There are so many complicated and detailed workforce regulations that exist today, it’s important that someone manage the increasing paper trails that are thereby created. Least any legal actions take place. Depending on the organisation these could be anything from employment contracts through to union activities, unfair dismissals, discrimination complaints or fair work practices.

Although most companies outsource this important work to experienced legal firms, someone has to do the admin and HR is probably best placed for that.

As such, anytime you chose to go to HR with a complaint, concern or for support, it will most certainly be documented. It will also be shared with senior management, placed in your file and given their bias, the outcome managed to benefit of the company.

There is absolutely no situation where HR would ever have genuine concern for the individual, over the interest of the company. Ever.

If you think that they are your ‘friend’ or expect any kind of emotional support, you are being naïve. They are not paid to be nice people; their job is to manage the company’s legal obligations to their employees. Don’t let the word ‘human’ in HR fool you into thinking they are expected to offer humanity or care. They are not.

Lack Value

Throughout my career I’ve heard the most senior HR person in every company I’ve worked at, talk about being a ‘strategic partner’ to the business. I never understood it and when challenged, neither did they. In my experience HR people are not strategic. They are not creative. They are not technical. And they are generally not as well educated as the rest of the business.

I have never known HR to be at the strategic table. In the few cases that they were (either because they had an ally on the Board or the CEO was inappropriate, sexist, racist and needed a minder) HR never added one piece of strategic input.

They spend a lot of time creating, compiling and discussing, endless performance review processes, compliance activities and engagement surveys to satisfy their own checklists and justify their existence. Employees rarely trust or see any meaningful outcomes from any of these arduous activities. And they stifle productivity. From personal experience, I can tell you every one of them will be manipulated by HR to achieve a required outcome. Whether it be pay rises, promotions, training or engagement scores, the company’s objectives override any process outcomes.

In terms of recruitment, I have found this responsibility the most ironic of all.

Irrelevance

Agree, someone has to do the paperwork and coordinate the interview process but rarely are HR people equipped to entice or assess candidates. They operate from list of generalised criteria and outside of that, they use their own judgement and discretion to filter candidates. This often comes down to how they feel on the day and based on personal bias.

HR rarely understands the role they’re recruiting.

Particularly if it is for IT, Marketing, Sales or Operations. The sophistication of roles required in today’s competitive business landscape is something that has passed this industry by. They still hold onto traditional ideals, outdated clichés and are oblivious to the intellect and nuances of the roles.

HR continues to be a department that dumbs-down, benchmarks and standardises everything within their remit. I believe this is because it’s easier. They oppose any kind of creativity, supress superstars and are obsessive about maintaining the status quo. This is the antithesis of diversity, innovation and progress.

Now where is the value in that?

Limited Capabilities

Generally speaking, HR is not the industry that ambitious, creative intellects are drawn to. In fact, quite the opposite. They are rarely highly qualified or extensively educated, not independent thinkers or change agents, prefer the status quo and mediocrity, and have little interest in business, technology or finance. It is for this reason that they are not part of the strategic conversation of business nor can they add any value at that table.

Where they do add value is where they are most competent. And that is administration including pay, benefits and retirement. That’s it.

Political Players

I’ve learnt the hard way that investing any kind of trust in the HR department – particularly the most senior player – is career suicide. Generally, they establish themselves into an HR silo, creating their own niche culture of secrets and privileged information. As keepers of all employee files, they all have access to everyone’s personal details and business interactions. They will use it if required. This gives them, even the most junior of the team, a sense of entitlement and power. Typically this is driven by the most senior HR personal who will use this privilege as leverage in their personal ambitions in any way possible.

It is for these reasons that HR cannot be trusted and in my experience, they are not.

Misaligned responsibilities

To cement this power position, often an HR department will say they ‘own culture’. Or own ‘People’. In some cases either or both of these words will be part of it’s title. To me this is a red flag.

Any company that thinks the management of people or culture is a single departments responsibility is a failure in my book. Any modern sophisticated business will tell you culture is driven from the top – set by the collective Board/owner and comes to life with its employees. Sure, HR will organise the ‘Wear a Ribbon Day’ and flu vaccinations but they are the least connected to the employees, the customers or management. Similarly outside of contract administration, ‘people’ are the collective responsibly of management and leaders.

The same can be said about issues of diversity, sex discrimination, human rights, racism, mental health. These are issues that the whole business should own and build into the open discussions of senior management and leaders as part of a healthy company culture. These are critical people matters that are the responsibility of all business leaders to understand. Not the domain of an administrative silo that is desperately trying to stay relevant in today’s contemporary business.

The Future of HR

Given the importance nearly every modern company today place in their people, the potential of a reimagined human resources department in driving growth and positive outcomes is huge.

Sadly HR’s significance will never be realised. Certainly not whilst they continue to put employees interests last, fail to add any real value, have limited capabilities and thrive on political manipulation and power. And that’s the trouble with HR.

However, we need not worry.

The HR department as we know it is becoming more and more irrelevant. With the increasing rise of outsourced or automated administration and HR’s continued irrelevance, there is little doubt the HR Department as we know it will soon disappear altogether. And that day can’t come soon enough.

therealceo