HR Departments: what's the point of them

The HR world seems to be buzzing today in response to Sathnam Sanghera's “Human resources departments: I've never understood the point of them” article in The Times online.

Human resources departments: I've never understood the point of them

Sanghera does rather blot his journalist’s copybook early in his frustrating but challenging piece when he admits that “I’ve never dealt with HR myself” thereby reducing his article to the level of a book review written by someone who has not actually read the book in question!

The article does also remind me of those who mutter, “I don’t know much about Art, but I know what I like” or, in Sanghera's case, what he doesn’t like. Unfortunately, his claim to be neutral on the merits or otherwise of HR is very easily blown out of the water through a swift peruse of his blog which trumpets that he was HR Journalist of the Year in the 2006 and a Watson Wyatt (a major HR consultancy) Awards for Excellence winner this year. Come on Mr. S! You can't have your cake and eat it! Let's face it, you make your money from rabble-rousing articles written about and also for the HR profession, so to claim that you've never had to deal with HR yourself is simply untrue.

He does rather miss the point when he claims that “HR can’t even decide on what to call itself. "Recent suggestions vary from “personnel” to “human capital management”, “employee resources”, “organisational capability”, “talent management”, “performance management”, “organisational development” and “human relations”” Most would agree that many of these are discrete elements of HR, and are focused on entirely different areas; they are not interchangeable terms for the same activity.

Having said all that, as a member of the demonised group, I do find myself having to agree with some of the points made about the HR profession not being able to adequately explain to others what it actually does

As some of you (especially the teachers) will be aware, I've recently been writing a series of articles for students of A Level Business Studies under the title of "What do HR Managers actually do?" and have been following the framework of the CIPD Profession Map to do this. Some of the areas on the map are clearly explained, but I would have to confess that a bright A Level student would be hard-pressed to read some elements and gain an adequate overview of what we claim to be doing when we're involved in, for example, Employee Engagement. If we can't explain what we do in simple terms, then we need to stop doing it.

Also when the CIPD announces, as it has done today, the launch of "a major research programme which will paint a picture of how the HR function needs to evolve" I suspect that many of us groan inwardly and mutter, "here we go again!" With all the changes that we impose on ourselves as HR professionals, sadly I believe that we're in danger of becoming like Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat: slowly fading away until nothing of us is left other than our smile. And perhaps a policy or two.

Oh, and by the way Sathnam: who needs journalists these days either?