Repositioning (or eliminating) HR Department
Are there anyone aspiring to become a HR professional reading this blogpost? If there are any, maybe it is interesting to note that there are indeed quite a disconnect between the 2 significant function in HR and a missing link between the 2 when one rises in the career ladder of a HR professional.
The 2 functions that I’m talking about here are:
- the daily administration and HR operations
- the strategic planning and advisory
When once aspires to be a HR professional, it’s more often the second item above that fuels the aspiration, seldom the first. However, it’s rare for an entry level hire to assume the second function unless he/she works as an entry level consultant. So what does entry level HR practitioners do in most organizations?
More often than not, a fresh graduate who joins the HR department begin the career with data entry, filing a little data analysis and report writing. These are often the “administrative part of HR”. The reason why they begin there? Just like any other profession, the administrative portion provides the best grounding to understand the full process.
However, unlike the sales or marketing professions where the junior sales person who follows the mentor will soon begin to do his own sales, get a larger portfolio then soon be promoted to manage a team of sales people, in the process learns about new strategies of closing sales and understanding what works vs. what doesn’t; the junior HR practitioner who starts of with the groundwork and slowly move up the ladder by leading a team of administrators and eventually lead a compensation team or recruitment team will find it hard to finally end up in the strategic planning and advisory role to partner the business divisions or become the overall Head of HR.
Why does this happen? It’s all because the “grounding” and “on-the-job-training” lacks the important element of business acumen to understand business division needs; therefore creating a gap that needs to be bridged before a HR practitioner assumes a more strategic advisory role. Otherwise, get ready to hear the phrase “what do you HR people know about the business?” which is very common in today’s business environment.
Let’s analyse some respected HR leaders around. One of my favourites would be Roshan Thiran (CEO of Leaderonomics and former Talent Management Head in Johnson and Johnson as well as General Electric Malaysia) - More than half his career wasn’t in HR but elsewhere in the business, giving him the ability to link people to business. Most multinationals I know too has HR heads with prior experience in profit generating divisions, basically understanding the differences between the ideals of HR in theory and reality in practices.
If the above is the case, is there really a career path of HR practitioners who joins at entry level? The answer is yes only if they’re ready to spend a duration outside HR and operations; preferably in a revenue generating division.
That leads me to think about how HR could “reposition itself” or even to restructure the organization and eliminate the HR department. Move the administrative matters of HR to the confidential operations department. Each individual business division heads could then appoint “HR advisors” or consultants which is a positioned as part of the division. Afterall, the success of a HR initiative depends on the buy-in of the senior business leaders. Doesn’t it make more sense for the business leaders to just obtain advise and make decisions on driving them instead?
Final food for thought - The role of the manager is Planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling. Doesn’t that mean motivating and managing employee matters is the role of the manager? Why leave it to HR? Without senior management buy-ins, HR can only “create activities”, not implement change.
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