Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK.
Today we welcome a late addition to the blog. I am very pleased to say that the seasoned blogger and experienced HR pro Graham Salisbury has joined our ranks. Here is his debut post. (Ed Scrivener)
The HR Professional: Rock Drummer or Backing Vocalist?
Here’s a simple question to hopefully get the grey cells in motion:
What do you actually doas an HR professional?
By that I don’t mean what are the component parts of your job, such as recruitment, reward and performance management, but what is the overall purpose of what you do each day? In your organisation, who sets the agenda for what the HR function is trying to achieve?
Clearly these are questions that the HR profession has wrestled with for many years, but it doesn’t seem to me that we have reached any resolution on them so far.
During the course of completing a Masters in HR a couple of years ago, my literature review led me to Karen Legge’s snappily titled “Power, Innovation and Problem-Solving in Personnel Management”, written way back in 1978. Strangely enough, for a book that has been described as “seminal” it’s currently out of print, though you can get your hands on a second hand copy on Amazon at the moment.
In her book, Legge squares up to the fundamental questions of what should be the objectives of HR (although she uses the term “personnel”) management, and also how such objectives can best be achieved. She might have been writing over 35 years ago, but I suspect that most of us in the HR profession today frequently echo her questions of how our function can gain a higher priority in organisational decision making, and also how we can increase the power that our function exercises within our organisations. Bearing in mind that it has recently been claimed that the HR profession has failed to overcome many of the problems identified by Legge 35 years ago, it’s worth a second glance at what she wrote back in the days when flared trousers were in fashion.
Legge’s description of two types of role that can be undertaken by the HR professional seem to me to crystallize the options that we have for the way we operate in our organisations. Have a look at her two conflicting roles, and ask yourself which most accurately describes the way you see yourself as an HR professional:
Do you see yourself as a conformist innovator, and regard your purpose as being to gain the expertise that will allow you to demonstrate a closer relationship between your activities and the success of the organisation? If you operate in this role, you’re more likely to accept the prevailing culture and values of the organisation, but nevertheless you’ll attempt to demonstrate the value that you and the HR function can add within this framework. If you’re a conformist innovator, you’ll probably be into service level agreements, HR Information Systems, metrics and measurements in a big way. You probably know the precise Learning and Development spend per employee for the last 12 months, and also know the exact cost per hire (to the nearest penny!) and time to hire (down to the minute!)
Or do you see yourself as a deviant innovator, where you do more than just accept the organisation’s ends and adjust your means to achieve them? Do you actually regard your purpose as being to get your organisation to accept and implement a different set of criteria for the evaluation of success? You’ll probably recognise that you have a task on your hands, as persuading senior managers that factors other than financial success should be used to measure the performance of the organisation is, to say the least, a big ask! If you are a deviant innovator you will probably be more turned on by organisational development, and also see the importance of making sure that your organisation is responsive to the needs of the external society in which it is placed. Things like Employee Wellbeing and Corporate Social Responsibility are likely to be issues that float your boat.
Basically, my interpretation of Legge’s two alternative manifestations of HR boils down to this:
As an HR professional, do you march to the beat of the drum that is thumped by the CEO and the senior management team, or do you see yourself as the drummer in the band?
I guess I’m showing my age (as well as my musical preferences!) here, but fellow HR professional (deliberate pun alert) Who Are You: Keith Moon, or a backing vocalist?
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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK. Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.
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