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Why I Hate HR MGT/431 Why I Hate Hr The issue we are addressing in this assignment below is the problems of Human Resource Management; the author has written the topic “Why we hate HR? “. He has listed several issues faced such by the human resource management – managers and there is quite a number of times having to distance themselves from the employees. He has started his case by talking about “why human-resource does not do such a good job”, and how can we fix it? hen he continues with the Sarcastic criticism of the general outlook of people towards HR , and considers that the HR people just find a great excuse of partying, calling it a HR leadership training program at the most expensive resorts. Considered by many as a waste of time and money. Author Keith Hammonds, Deputy Editor of Fast Company magazine lit up HR managers with his long August 2005 article entitled, “Why We Hate HR. ” He made a number of harsh accusations about HR people. As we have seen the article is provocative.
I know many people think such accusations are true for some in the line of work, though as generalizations all are wrong. Should HR say nothing, or what exactly should they say instead? In fact Human Resource is making vast leaps forward as we speak. Instead of bashing pet peeves in the profession we should look into what is working. Punching at a problem rarely encourages improvement, though it gets lots of notice and expected email, both from irritated HR people and those who love to instigate them. It’s time for an equally pointed response.
The author drags out most of the cliche, tired-but-not-yet-dead accusations. He ploughs out four in particular: that HR people are “not the sharpest tacks,” that they are paper and policy mongers, that they are by treating everyone exactly equally “the mistaken belief” this is fairness, and that the HR managers cannot see the bigger picture. The last is truly the key issue. The others, nonetheless, grow from this. If they miss the larger picture of creating value, they are missing it not only for the companies they work for, but the individuals and their needs as well.
It is irrelevant to compare Human Resource to finance and other support operations. As all HR managers make pretty much the same accusations about all of these sectors. They joke about “blinker eyed” accountants who only focus on lockstep processes and can’t see the value of investing in pioneering ventures. HR managers at the same time support division’s needle line executives for their tendency to brush off “technical” issues in their hurry to take shortcuts just to make their bonus numbers. Such digs may be humorous, but none of this is constructive. “Not the Sharpest Tacks”
Looking at HR in perspective against Keith’s claim that HR Managers are generally dull, side-lined executives who couldn’t make it in other fields. Keith alludes to, but doesn’t spell out that HR is relatively new as a profession without the 400 year history that, for example, accounting has. It was born out of payroll administration to take on a chaos of work that line executives didn’t want to make time for such as hiring, familiarizing with company atmosphere, training, terminations, HR legal issues, human rights, health and safety rules and literally dozens of other tasks loosely related to people.
It can be a punching bag for all departments and Head Honchos and add to that few functions have to deal with the complexity of issues that HR does. Clear cut accounting rules have become increasingly complex lately, but nothing to compare with the massive grey areas and differing legislation that HR executives routinely have to deal with – many of which offer few absolute, clear-cut answers to tell your CEO or staff. Do really dumb people get stuck in HR? As per Keith’s views many line managers, still sideline weaker managers into the function and assign them mainly paper-pushing tasks, “party-planning” and police duty as he notes.
Nevertheless those who may look like losers frequently aren’t. HR is often asked to impose rules, sometimes some that don’t fit with most employees, mostly not thought up by HR at all, but by irritated fuming CEO’s demanding spontaneous responses to routine organizational problems better handled in other ways. In one situation HR was routinely held responsible for a poorly designed bonus plan that time after time paid out top awards, including even south sea cruises, to some of the worst performing area head, which were only good at sweet talking.
Dumping weak executives into HR shows as much or more a failing of line managers than of the individuals who end up in the HR function. This will be fatal going forward and won’t be allowed to continue. A bigger issue is whether senior teams can learn to effectively absorb the input of their HR members as valuable. Agreed not everyone is great, but HR certainly isn’t the only area with some weaker players by any means as every function holds its share of those who couldn’t make it elsewhere, but have hung on where they started, barely coping with the basics.
What Keith doesn’t seem to be aware of is that most executives never reach the top jobs in any case, nor could they. Organizations thrive because they’re tough on people in every function and ideally only the best rise to the top. Conclusion Keith Hammonds, author of, “Why We Hate Hr”, clearing has no good feeling towards Human Resource Managers. Team B strongly believes if we did not have HRM’s in organizations today, there would clearly be a lot of confusion and no development training in today’s workforce.
Keith spends a lot of time talking down on human resources but does not clearly provide any facts about his opinions. Team B is disagrees with the author on this article as it has been stated above; these are truly just and only opinions from an individual who clearly hates human resources. References Hammonds, K. H. (2005). Why We Hate Hr. Noe, R. A. , Hollenbeck, J. R. , Gerhart, B. , & Wright, P. M. (2007). Fundamentals of human resource management (2nd ed. ). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.