{"id":942,"date":"2008-09-09T01:00:27","date_gmt":"2008-09-09T09:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=942"},"modified":"2008-09-09T01:00:43","modified_gmt":"2008-09-09T09:00:43","slug":"why-we-don%e2%80%99t-need-hr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=942","title":{"rendered":"Why We Don\u2019t Need HR"},"content":{"rendered":"

Simon Baker<\/a> wrote a piece that was not as inflammatory as the well known \u201cWhy We Hate HR\u201d article a couple years ago.\u00a0 I found it quite entertaining and thought it deserved a response.\u00a0 Simon has a couple of good points, but also it\u2019s discouraging to see his opinions from both a management and strategy point of view.\u00a0 I think Simon is misguided, but you can read his post yourself.\u00a0 Here are my thoughts.<\/p>\n

I have been thinking about the role of HR in a business and a question that goes through my mind is \u201cdo you really need an HR team\u201d.\u00a0 Now i can hear the chorous of \u201cof course you do\u201d – however the question is what is it that HR does that a line manager cant do themselves?\u00a0 ((Baker, Simon))\u00a0 ((errors from original text))<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Absolutely right.\u00a0 There is much that the line manager must focus on.\u00a0 I mean really, Simon is right.\u00a0 Managers have to take responsibility that they are front line HR.\u00a0 They are the ones who engage the employee.\u00a0 They are the ones who determine levels of satisfaction and productivity.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the problem.\u00a0 Nobody trusts them to execute on anything that is not their core job.\u00a0 If HR activities and measurements of engagement are not in their performance based goals, then there will never be any focus.\u00a0 And at the end of the day, do you really want a $40K\/year line supervisor being responsible for productivity?\u00a0 Simon goes through a few examples, some of which I\u2019d like to respond to as well.<\/p>\n

Firing
\nOK – a tough one.\u00a0 I know a number of managers who defer the firing of people to HR.\u00a0 Now this is a weak way of managing a business and the firing of people is something that should be done by the line manager.\u00a0 HR can be there to help and make sure that the correct procedures are followed, however they should not be any more than that.\u00a0 ((Ibid))<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Right again.\u00a0 Hiring and firing is the domain of the line manager.\u00a0 They are the ones who should be executing the processes, making the decisions, talking to the candidates and employees.\u00a0 I do have a problem with the statement, \u201cHR can be there to help and make sure that the correct procedures are followed, however they should not be any more than that.\u201d\u00a0 To me, this is just uninformed.\u00a0 When it comes to hiring and firing, procedures is not nearly enough.\u00a0 Are you telling me that the hiring manager is supposed to know about the quality of hire metrics for the entire organization?\u00a0 Does the hiring manager really understand the success rate of various candidate sourcing tools?\u00a0 And for firing, does the manager really understand the compliance issues that impact a decision and a discussion?\u00a0 Do you really want to put a possible $2M lawsuit per bad termination in the hands of a line manager?\u00a0 Procedures to me don\u2019t include compliance and strategy.\u00a0 Line managers do enough.\u00a0 Don\u2019t make them experts in too many other things as well that are not part of their normal day to day jobs.<\/p>\n

Remuneration
\nIn many businesses, HR is responsible for setting the pay scales. Well i dont agree with this.\u00a0 THe market should be setting the pay scales and people should be paid for performance not pay for position.\u00a0 When a manager is doing their budget, they need to think about the people, understand what the market is paying and then make recommendations within the budget framework as to what someone should be paid.\u00a0\u00a0 ((Ibid))<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Really I have an issue with this one.\u00a0 Line managers can\u2019t seriously be expected to understand market pay.\u00a0 In fact, compensation professionals usually buy several surveys to tell them what\u2019s going on in the market.\u00a0 They set strategies with the top business leaders based on whether the organization wants to lead, lag or perform with the market based on integrated conversations around talent attraction and retention.\u00a0 They bring in a view of total rewards with benefits packages to have a clear view of what the total employer value proposition is.\u00a0 Again, Simon is a CEO perhaps, but maybe he really needs a new HR person who gets strategy.\u00a0 Clearly Simon\u2019s view of HR is fully administrative.\u00a0 This is not a job the line manager can do.<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s enough complaining from me.\u00a0 Simon does have some good points.\u00a0 The line manager is all too often overlooked in her critical role in managing and engaging employees.\u00a0 They are the focal points of all employee interactions, and without good guidance they cannot be the corporate ambassadors we need them to be.\u00a0 Having said that, they do a job.\u00a0 That job is not to focus on the interconnections between the many various points of HR.\u00a0 They should not have to understand how to implement the strategies that tie the business strategy to the HR and employee strategy.\u00a0 If you want to send every line manager to get an MBA (and pay for it), then maybe that\u2019s an approach.\u00a0 However, the normal line manager just wants to get their job done.\u00a0 They don\u2019t need 2 and 3 additional jobs getting in the way of their core focus.\u00a0 And anyway, the 2nd and 3rd additional jobs don\u2019t get executed well anyway.\u00a0 We all know that from experience.<\/p>\n

I agree that line manager should do more of the processing.\u00a0 But line managers are not strategists.\u00a0 If I\u2019m wrong and they are, then I\u2019d suggest Simon test this out at his company and give the line managers HR strategy, finance strategy, product strategy too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simon Baker wrote a piece that was not as inflammatory as the well known \u201cWhy We Hate HR\u201d article a couple years ago.\u00a0 I found it quite entertaining and thought it deserved a response.\u00a0 Simon has a couple of good…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,10,47,48,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-change-management","category-engagement","category-governance","category-hr-service-delivery","category-strategies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}