HR is like a ‘Stay at home Mom’. They make all the resource available, provide all the needed comfort & cushioning, and ensures that never there is a gap between available talent and required talent so to avoid any kind of productivity loss to the organization. They ensure one receives his salary well on time that too well justified (by adjusting all the overtimes & commissions), they ensure one keeps developing through various IDP and T&D programs, and they conduct timely appraisals to check the talent level in order to either appraise the talent or to develop them further so that the employee can always remain aligned with business objectives.
They take care of all the grievances and other issues. They ensure discipline in the organization. They also conduct all the administrative tasks to ensure that insurance, visa, medical facilities, travel program, PF, gratuity, and other facilities are in place. They go to the extent wherein they conduct happiness programs (team outings, family get-together events, weekend parties, etc) to ensure employees' mental and psychological wellbeing. Unfortunately, like any ‘Stay at home Mom’, even HR is undervalued and often misjudged.
From United Arab Emirates, Dubai
3They take care of all the grievances and other issues. They ensure discipline in the organization. They also conduct all the administrative tasks to ensure that insurance, visa, medical facilities, travel program, PF, gratuity, and other facilities are in place. They go to the extent wherein they conduct happiness programs (team outings, family get-together events, weekend parties, etc) to ensure employees' mental and psychological wellbeing. Unfortunately, like any ‘Stay at home Mom’, even HR is undervalued and often misjudged.
From United Arab Emirates, Dubai
Dear Sunita,
Your last post was in 2011. Good to note that you have visited this forum after a hiatus of 11 years.
In your post, you have converted Job Description (JD) statements of a junior HR position into "HR does so and so". At the last, you have expressed your grouse that HR is not valued or misjudged.
Nevertheless, the HR functions you have mentioned are the service functions. These were functions of a personnel manager of the erstwhile era. You have not mentioned any function that impacts the business positively.
If HR is undervalued or misjudged, then the HR professionals themselves are to be blamed. Look at the quality of the posts on this forum. After spending years in HR, people do not know how to write a simple post on a public forum. One's personality is understood when one puts his/her thoughts in the public forum.
Anyway, keep aside the quality of business writing. In the list you have provided, you have not mentioned the ROI of the various activities of HR. How many HRs are capable of measuring the impact of their activities on business? How many HRs measure ROI on the training programme they conducted or the cost of attrition? If they don't measure, then what holds them back?
The top leadership is interested only in promoting and expanding their business. They are interested in numbers. The HR professionals are unable to talk the language of numbers and that is why they are not valued. If one is to be valued, then one must project one's intellectual assertiveness. Far from demonstrating intellectual assertiveness, most of the HRs mentally reconcile to play a second fiddle.
If one were to succeed, one has to be ambitious. Not that HR professionals are not ambitious. But their ambition is limited to becoming VP (HR) or Director (HR). Why do they not aim to become CEO?
What I have written is about individual HR professionals. What about the various HR bodies that operate even at the national level? What exactly have they done to highlight the value of the HR function? Other than conducting seminars on leadership, employee engagement or some similar subject, how many times do they take up the cause of the employees where rampant violation of labour laws take place? If HR is people's function, then how many times have these HR bodies stepped in to provide justice to the people? Why do they fail to demonstrate their leadership?
There are a few other reasons as well. However, I do not wish to put forth all and paint HR's negative image. To sum up, let me say that today's HR has evolved from yesterday's personnel management. However, it is just a physical transformation. The real intellectual evolution is yet to take place. When HR's evolve, they will be valued. That is for sure!
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
From India, Bangalore
Your last post was in 2011. Good to note that you have visited this forum after a hiatus of 11 years.
In your post, you have converted Job Description (JD) statements of a junior HR position into "HR does so and so". At the last, you have expressed your grouse that HR is not valued or misjudged.
Nevertheless, the HR functions you have mentioned are the service functions. These were functions of a personnel manager of the erstwhile era. You have not mentioned any function that impacts the business positively.
If HR is undervalued or misjudged, then the HR professionals themselves are to be blamed. Look at the quality of the posts on this forum. After spending years in HR, people do not know how to write a simple post on a public forum. One's personality is understood when one puts his/her thoughts in the public forum.
Anyway, keep aside the quality of business writing. In the list you have provided, you have not mentioned the ROI of the various activities of HR. How many HRs are capable of measuring the impact of their activities on business? How many HRs measure ROI on the training programme they conducted or the cost of attrition? If they don't measure, then what holds them back?
The top leadership is interested only in promoting and expanding their business. They are interested in numbers. The HR professionals are unable to talk the language of numbers and that is why they are not valued. If one is to be valued, then one must project one's intellectual assertiveness. Far from demonstrating intellectual assertiveness, most of the HRs mentally reconcile to play a second fiddle.
If one were to succeed, one has to be ambitious. Not that HR professionals are not ambitious. But their ambition is limited to becoming VP (HR) or Director (HR). Why do they not aim to become CEO?
What I have written is about individual HR professionals. What about the various HR bodies that operate even at the national level? What exactly have they done to highlight the value of the HR function? Other than conducting seminars on leadership, employee engagement or some similar subject, how many times do they take up the cause of the employees where rampant violation of labour laws take place? If HR is people's function, then how many times have these HR bodies stepped in to provide justice to the people? Why do they fail to demonstrate their leadership?
There are a few other reasons as well. However, I do not wish to put forth all and paint HR's negative image. To sum up, let me say that today's HR has evolved from yesterday's personnel management. However, it is just a physical transformation. The real intellectual evolution is yet to take place. When HR's evolve, they will be valued. That is for sure!
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
From India, Bangalore
Dear Sunita,
However grim, the picture seems to be changing.
Our last year's survey of more than 400 HR Professionals shows that of the four roles of an HR Professional (Administrative Expert, Business Partner, People's champion, and Change Agent - as given by David Ulrich), while the Admin. Expert is still a dominating role, the HRBP is not far behind, and HR's involvement in bringing about change is also not low in priority - although it is still not the top priority.
As long as HR professionals are well trained, and help their organizations become more effective, they will retain their importance.
Have faith, and think positive!
Best wishes,
Team HRM For Non-HR Managers
Email:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hrfornonhr.gu.1/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hrm4nonhrmanagers/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cec22M
From India
However grim, the picture seems to be changing.
Our last year's survey of more than 400 HR Professionals shows that of the four roles of an HR Professional (Administrative Expert, Business Partner, People's champion, and Change Agent - as given by David Ulrich), while the Admin. Expert is still a dominating role, the HRBP is not far behind, and HR's involvement in bringing about change is also not low in priority - although it is still not the top priority.
As long as HR professionals are well trained, and help their organizations become more effective, they will retain their importance.
Have faith, and think positive!
Best wishes,
Team HRM For Non-HR Managers
Email:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hrfornonhr.gu.1/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hrm4nonhrmanagers/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cec22M
From India
Hello Mr. Diveker,
Wow, I missed this forum so much in the past years. It’s great to be back after many years and getting this grand welcome. Thanks for your wonderful insight about Human Resource functionality.
Really fascinating to know that for you Talent acquisition, Talent management, Organization and Employee Development, Performance Appraisal, Salary restructuring, Comp and Ben, Grievance handling, HR Administration are just some pity HR functions handled by so called “Junior HR employees.”
I really wonder what the senior HR professional does then? May be busy teaching professional writing to random people on public forums….:)
Just for your info, what I mentioned in my post:
HR ensures there is no GAP in talent; says that HR plays a strategic role in ensuring that the business doesn’t suffer due to lack of competent resources. Hence HR plays a strategic role in doing manpower planning, and budgeting.
It is the HR which ensures that once you hire a resource, they should settle well in their space (guess then only they will be able to perform & then only the organization will perform.) I don’t need to mention that who plays the big role here.
It is the HR, which does the well-rounded grooming of each professional through various IDPs and T&D programs including the one who are due to take the next C-Suite position through succession planning (Oops again a strategic level thing done by HR.)
It is the HR which works on employee’s compensation and benefits to ensure the compensation remains competitive with the external market. If not, the Attrition will go up which if goes beyond a level is not considered healthy. Cost saving for the organization and retaining the best talent is a part of HR functionality (sorry for you but again a strategic task done by HR.)
It is the HR which goes through the cumbersome process of Performance Appraisal, but it will be a good to know info for you to know that Appraisal process doesn’t go only from HR’s table and done in a day. On the contrary, it involves everyone from the HR to the supervisors, to the Line Managers to the General Manager to the HR Director and sometimes to the CEO of the company & easily take weeks or even months to finish. So, if at all your junior HR does all these, then time for you to hire more resources and getting it done correctly and effectively.
Grievance management- It is not a work but ART and a person who is not well aware of HR can never do it effectively. An HR has to become a psychologist, a friend, a family and what not to deal effectively with grievances. Again, by reading your post, I doubt you have much knowledge about the same.
Why I mentioned HR is like ‘Stay at home Mom’ is because even after doing everything from ‘Pin to Plane,’ they get the same treatment like a Mom (who after spending hours ensuring the well-being of the family barely get even a single recognition or appreciation from others. Or shall I say, she is mostly taken for granted. The same is happening with HR these days, people have made it a point to take HR for granted & talk ill about it . Considering what all HR does, it deserves anything but to be taken for granted.
Talking about ROI. YES, it is pertinent to measure HR KPIs and that is the reason we have HR Scorecards, wherein every activity of HR gets measured and quantified. It is a hilarious to know that you feel HR is not able to talk numbers.
On the contrary, in today’s world HR is all about numbers and deliverables. They have long back made their way in the boardroom, unfortunately there are people who still feel HR functionalities are just the JD of a Jr. HR professional. It’s high time when people should and must change their attitude and thinking about HR. If you have an iota of doubt about how to measure ANY HR functions, please enlighten yourself with some study material and white papers. Let me know if you want me to pass on some to you.
Unfortunately, my post was not about all these, but about the treatment it gets after doing as much. Of course, People’s ignorance has a big role to play here (as clearly reflected from your post).
Expecting a better and more mature response next time.
Till then good luck with your trainings,
Regards,
PS: Btw, you are right about what you write reflects your personality…😊. Your post too talks a lot about you as a person.
From United Arab Emirates, Dubai
Wow, I missed this forum so much in the past years. It’s great to be back after many years and getting this grand welcome. Thanks for your wonderful insight about Human Resource functionality.
Really fascinating to know that for you Talent acquisition, Talent management, Organization and Employee Development, Performance Appraisal, Salary restructuring, Comp and Ben, Grievance handling, HR Administration are just some pity HR functions handled by so called “Junior HR employees.”
I really wonder what the senior HR professional does then? May be busy teaching professional writing to random people on public forums….:)
Just for your info, what I mentioned in my post:
HR ensures there is no GAP in talent; says that HR plays a strategic role in ensuring that the business doesn’t suffer due to lack of competent resources. Hence HR plays a strategic role in doing manpower planning, and budgeting.
It is the HR which ensures that once you hire a resource, they should settle well in their space (guess then only they will be able to perform & then only the organization will perform.) I don’t need to mention that who plays the big role here.
It is the HR, which does the well-rounded grooming of each professional through various IDPs and T&D programs including the one who are due to take the next C-Suite position through succession planning (Oops again a strategic level thing done by HR.)
It is the HR which works on employee’s compensation and benefits to ensure the compensation remains competitive with the external market. If not, the Attrition will go up which if goes beyond a level is not considered healthy. Cost saving for the organization and retaining the best talent is a part of HR functionality (sorry for you but again a strategic task done by HR.)
It is the HR which goes through the cumbersome process of Performance Appraisal, but it will be a good to know info for you to know that Appraisal process doesn’t go only from HR’s table and done in a day. On the contrary, it involves everyone from the HR to the supervisors, to the Line Managers to the General Manager to the HR Director and sometimes to the CEO of the company & easily take weeks or even months to finish. So, if at all your junior HR does all these, then time for you to hire more resources and getting it done correctly and effectively.
Grievance management- It is not a work but ART and a person who is not well aware of HR can never do it effectively. An HR has to become a psychologist, a friend, a family and what not to deal effectively with grievances. Again, by reading your post, I doubt you have much knowledge about the same.
Why I mentioned HR is like ‘Stay at home Mom’ is because even after doing everything from ‘Pin to Plane,’ they get the same treatment like a Mom (who after spending hours ensuring the well-being of the family barely get even a single recognition or appreciation from others. Or shall I say, she is mostly taken for granted. The same is happening with HR these days, people have made it a point to take HR for granted & talk ill about it . Considering what all HR does, it deserves anything but to be taken for granted.
Talking about ROI. YES, it is pertinent to measure HR KPIs and that is the reason we have HR Scorecards, wherein every activity of HR gets measured and quantified. It is a hilarious to know that you feel HR is not able to talk numbers.
On the contrary, in today’s world HR is all about numbers and deliverables. They have long back made their way in the boardroom, unfortunately there are people who still feel HR functionalities are just the JD of a Jr. HR professional. It’s high time when people should and must change their attitude and thinking about HR. If you have an iota of doubt about how to measure ANY HR functions, please enlighten yourself with some study material and white papers. Let me know if you want me to pass on some to you.
Unfortunately, my post was not about all these, but about the treatment it gets after doing as much. Of course, People’s ignorance has a big role to play here (as clearly reflected from your post).
Expecting a better and more mature response next time.
Till then good luck with your trainings,
Regards,
PS: Btw, you are right about what you write reflects your personality…😊. Your post too talks a lot about you as a person.
From United Arab Emirates, Dubai
Dear Sunita,
It appears that you were expecting a reply that corroborated your views. Probably my contrary reply has incensed you. You have given a rebuttal to my post. However, please note that your post was on why the HR professionals are not valued or why a due cognisance is not taken of their work. Your grouse is that the HR's work is underestimated across the board.
Nevertheless, proving the wrong will not not help you or any other HR professional in any way. A metaphorical depiction of HR as "stay at home Mom" may sound nice, but it will not alter the situation in any way.
My views are based on the interaction with the hundreds of HR professionals whom I interacted with in the last 15 years. Additionally, I have also interacted with a large number of business owners.
You are entitled for your views and I for mine. The views need not conform each other. Therefore, I wish to stop it over here. I do not wish to give a rebuttal from my side.
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
From India, Bangalore
It appears that you were expecting a reply that corroborated your views. Probably my contrary reply has incensed you. You have given a rebuttal to my post. However, please note that your post was on why the HR professionals are not valued or why a due cognisance is not taken of their work. Your grouse is that the HR's work is underestimated across the board.
Nevertheless, proving the wrong will not not help you or any other HR professional in any way. A metaphorical depiction of HR as "stay at home Mom" may sound nice, but it will not alter the situation in any way.
My views are based on the interaction with the hundreds of HR professionals whom I interacted with in the last 15 years. Additionally, I have also interacted with a large number of business owners.
You are entitled for your views and I for mine. The views need not conform each other. Therefore, I wish to stop it over here. I do not wish to give a rebuttal from my side.
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
From India, Bangalore
Dear Mr. Divekar,
Glad to know you have years of experience with HR Professionals and Business Owners. Please know the person you are communicating with, may have a richer portfolio.
Anyways, no rebuttal of course, and yes, everyone has the right to have his/her point of view. However, what surprises me the most is: when people talk ill of their own profession, when even after having years of experience, they fail to stand by their own profession and question it.
Please know, you have a choice not to respond however, I would appreciate if you could please elaborate your below mentioned statement:
"proving the wrong will not not help you or any other HR professional in any way. A metaphorical depiction of HR as "stay at home Mom" may sound nice, but it will not alter the situation in any way."
Would be interesting to know what 'wrong I am trying to prove?' how it sounds nice to you when I say HR is treated like a 'Stay at home Mom', and which situation will not alter?
Sorry but your viewpoint will certainly help me in doing some self introspection about my viewpoint towards HR.
Many thanks with regards,
Sunita
From United Arab Emirates, Dubai
Glad to know you have years of experience with HR Professionals and Business Owners. Please know the person you are communicating with, may have a richer portfolio.
Anyways, no rebuttal of course, and yes, everyone has the right to have his/her point of view. However, what surprises me the most is: when people talk ill of their own profession, when even after having years of experience, they fail to stand by their own profession and question it.
Please know, you have a choice not to respond however, I would appreciate if you could please elaborate your below mentioned statement:
"proving the wrong will not not help you or any other HR professional in any way. A metaphorical depiction of HR as "stay at home Mom" may sound nice, but it will not alter the situation in any way."
Would be interesting to know what 'wrong I am trying to prove?' how it sounds nice to you when I say HR is treated like a 'Stay at home Mom', and which situation will not alter?
Sorry but your viewpoint will certainly help me in doing some self introspection about my viewpoint towards HR.
Many thanks with regards,
Sunita
From United Arab Emirates, Dubai
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