20 Causes For HR’s One Big Huge Bodacious Problem

On the homepage of HRM Today, the new owners define a major problem for us in Human Resources:

HR Continues to be a valuable function within organizations, despite the fact that CEOs and other business leaders shrug HR off for a variety of reasons.  HR is continually battling against issues from all sides, but as someone who presumably works in HR or people-related departments, you know you provide value.  The trick is how do you show value to people outside of HR, and how do you prove it?

HR has a significant role to play in every organization.  Yes, it is true, that for the most part, our efforts are not valued at the appropriate level.  And…I’m not sure that it is our job to show our value or that we have to prove it.  It may be time to just shut-up, stop whining and go do our job with or without the support we would like to have.   At the same time, in the back room, we could start trying to understand the problem in more detail…

While part of the Total Quality Management movement, I learned to do effective problem-solving and before one even goes about solving a problem, a list of potential causes needs to be created.  If we were brainstorming causes (reasons from their point of view, not ours) for the problem described above, the list might look like this:

1. People inherently distrust the HR Function
2. Management does not trust us because they don’t think we know what they know and what they go through every day
3. We are perceived as overhead, a necessary evil, bureaucrats…
4. Our duties are too diversified for our clients – one day we are insurance policy interpreters and the next day we are management trainers – how can we be taken seriously?
5. HR departments which focus on event planning will not be treated seriously
6. Many times we act as their conscience (”You don’t have enough females in this job category”) and almost nobody wants to be guilted
7. We have to say “No” to them too many times
8. We are more an obstruction to them achieving their goals than helpers (perception, maybe)
9. Too many times we under-perform – referring them unqualified candidates, etc.
10. Managers have too much pride to admit they need us
11. Managers think they know how to manage people because they have been doing it a long time and they don’t need us to tell them how
12. Managers don’t have the patience to explain everything to us so that we can help them
13. We take up their time away from getting their jobs done – sexual harassment seminars,  benefits meetings and the like
14. We are not in their mainstream of doing their jobs everyday (outside the work process)
15. We won’t let them do what they want to do – fire non-performers easily, give out-of -policy salary increases, etc.
16. Many times we can’t tell employees what we know is the real problem, as in, we would love to say, “You are right, your boss is a jerk.”
17. Managers use us as the scapegoat – “HR won’t let me.”
18. We sometimes give the “wrong” advice (example: a good employee quits after a salary increase we recommend).
19. We have to deliver bad news – “Your insurance premiums are going up.”
20. We are given the role of the “grim reaper” (layoffs, discharges)

So, there are many reasons why we are “shrugged-off” by executives, managers and employees – so, where do we start fixing?  I’m tempted to tackle them one-by-one in this blog, but maybe I’ve already done that before.

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