HR Managers are their own worst enemy in the business world according to some respondents to the story of the HR manager not being accepted for the Managing Director role.
As one observer wrote to me, “I follow debates such as this in the magazines and on the net with amusement and sometimes bemusement. I suspect that HR professionals are never going to be elevated to star status in the majority of cases.”
The argument here is that HR managers are generally of two distinct types; the personnel manager and the training and development manager.
The personnel manager concentrates on issues such as pay, benefits, pensions, terms and conditions, etc. – matters that directly affect the immediate concerns of employees and emplyee reasons for going to work. This role gives them a degree of kudos; based on the premise of "develop the policy and procedures base such that employees ‘feel good’ about what the personnel manager is doing and that will feed upwards to board level and recognition will follow".
The training and development manager can be sub-divided into the trainer, the developer and the management developer. Primarily though the HR manager with this T&D bias sees their own career development through effective development of the employees. The argument here is that the T&D type HR manager does not have the high impact effect on employees as the personnel type manager. Training does not mean as much to an employee as basic pay and benefits. There is not the same effect from good results and employee happiness feeding upwards. The role therefore has to be supported by the T&D type manager himself or herself.
The end result is that exhortations are made to senior managers/managers about the holistic view of people development and the extensive benefits that the firm will derive from investment in such people development. Learning organisations, learning cultures are promoted and as one contributor put it, “there is a higher spiritual vision of individual and organisational commitment to learn, learn more and learn forever.”
The line of reasoning in this case continues that these two HR types – both battling in their own way to impress board level managers/directors – generally tend to shoot themselves in the foot. This is because their thinking is centred on their role and function as they see it and ignores other viewpoints, but also because in taking that stance they put themselves in a competing position with other functional mangers.
In a competitive situation, other line managers can easily draw out the negatives of HR activities. How often have you heard these for example?
“I’d get more done in my department if the staff weren’t forever on training courses.”
“I know who I want to take on in the job, but HR make it so difficult” or the reverse,
“I want to get rid of this person but HR won’t let me.”
“Why go through all of this appraisal stuff, I manage these people every day, I know who’s good and who’s bad, without going through this waste of time and effort.”
Then of course there’s the classic from the line manager to employee, “I’d love to give you a pay rise, but I can’t, it’s personnel policy.”
OK, we know that some of these are said but can be argued against, but it doesn’t alter the fact that negative statements are a bit like coffee stains on the carpet, difficult to get rid of and not easily distracted from.
In summary, this case argues that many HR managers are polarised into ‘personnel functions’ and ‘training and development functions’. Such managers find they have to rely on others for getting their message to senior levels within the organisation, and find they compete with other functional managers for boardroom attention and recognition. This competition is self-defeating in that the negatives of HR activity are easily brought into the open, whether valid or not.
