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AbstractMichael Millward, Abeceder Managing Director describes how the role of HR professionals has always been dictated by the needs of business, and examines how as organisations, of all kinds, strive to be more entrepreneurial their role will again have to adapt.ArticleMost management professions have their origins in the process of developing a business, but the human resources profession is different, it developed as, a consequence of managers attempting to combat the effects of a threat to the company’s internal status quo or external market conditions.In the simplest terms the professions original welfare role has its origins in the philanthropic desires of entrepreneurs like Rowntree, and Salt to compensate for the poor social and public health conditions in which their employees lived. In many organisations, however this role was more about tea and sympathy than creating social change. The profession really rose to prominence during the nineteen sixties and seventies, when the role switched to one of confronting the disruptive power of the trade unions. It changed again when faced with increasing global competition, managers decided that people were the only asset that would actually increase in value, and that trainers were required. More recently, as life expectations have changed, and what a business stands for has become as important as what it sells, HR professionals have become behavioural and social scientists, creating work experiences that match peoples aspirations. This last definition is of course what we are told we are supposed to be doing, but after meeting HR professionals in locations as different as New York and Phnom Penn, I have yet to find one who does not still spend the majority of their time either creating policies and procedures to control the business, or implementing them. There is little point in arguing that implementation is a line managers responsibility. All to often managers, when faced with a difficult decision or situation call in HR to resolve it. Why shouldn’t they? Not only are we more than grateful for our moment in the spotlight, the gentle mannered fire fighter come to save the day. It also seems to be part of the human condition to seek out a higher authority when times get tough. Mothers try to intimidate their offspring in to submission, with the prophecy of “just you wait’til’ your father gets home”. Schoolteachers send disruptive pupils to the headmaster’s office, and managers send their errant employees to Personnel. In too many businesses, it is still the managers, who tell people the good news, promotions, and pay rises. The HR professional is left to communicate and be associated with the bad news. A few years ago shortly after joining a new company, with an HR function that acted exactly like this I made my first visit to one of the regional sales offices, unannounced. When I arrived, the office was full of busy sales people. As quickly as news spread of the arrival of the new guy from HR, the office emptied, such was the expectation that HR only visited when there was bad news for somebody. It is ironic that a profession that bills itself as the profession for people, people, should have become known for administration and control. This role will not be compatible with the needs of business in the twenty-first century. Employees no longer see work as a means to an end, but as an important part of a balanced lifestyle. Increasing levels of competition in the digital age, mean that businesses will have to become more entrepreneurial at all levels. The traditional role of HR regardless of the guise it wears is about maintaining the status quo through, the use of policies and procedures. Successful entrepreneurism regardless of the level of the business at which it takes place, is dependent upon people challenging the status quo. Many organisations have already dispensed with their HR administration and payroll functions, outsourcing them to one of the many companies that specialise in other peoples’ paperwork. Others have taken a different route, and used their intranets and one of the many specialist software packages available to outsource their human resources administration to the employees themselves. This could either be a great opportunity for the profession or its downfall. The career path of many HR professionals begins in those administrative roles that are now being outsourced to administration companies. These roles were like the artisans’ apprenticeship, or the solicitors’ period as an articled clerk. Now that they are effectively disappearing, it will become increasingly difficult to start a career as an administrator. It is more likely that getting that first step on the professional ladder will require either a degree or a specialist qualification. Higher entry levels will create demands for higher salaries, and status from the professionals who achieve these high-powered qualifications, but such demands may fall on deaf-ears. There are still only 118,000 members of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. It does not require a high-powered mathematics qualification to work out that the majority of businesses in the United Kingdom either, do not have somebody who is focused on managing human resources, or they do not believe it is necessary for that person to be professionally qualified. Many people who have responsibility for human resources management in what are substantial businesses don’t value membership of their professional institute either. The HR department of a large retailer in which I worked for a short time, had over 20 people. I was the only one with a professional HR qualification. Sadly, we are talking about the twenty-first century in a country where successive governments of all political persuasions have been promoting the importance of people in achieving commercial success through schemes like the Investors in People initiative, and where the economy is becoming increasingly based on people based service industries. Perhaps the trend towards outsourcing HR administration, which as a function of the profession has to an extent masked the potential value that HR can offer businesses, will allow the profession to show managers exactly what it is capable of, allow it to achieve a higher status, and be found more regularly in the board room. One thing is almost certain the days of the generalist administration focused HR professional are numbered. They will have to become less people generalists, and more business generalists, working at the C.E.O.’s right hand. Understanding what they are about to think. All but the largest businesses will realise that not only can they not afford to have specialist human resources professionals on a full time basis, but they do not need them either. Recruitment, training, organisational development, occupational health and safety, and compensation and benefits will all become outsourced services contracted for a specific project or retained for regular strategic assessment or operational input. This is not so futuristic as it may seem, the development of the independent training sector has been progressing well for some time, and is now being matched by similar growth in other HR specialisms. Growth in this area of the profession has reached such levels that the CIPD have launched a specialist independents group network, and specialist HR recruitment consultants are regularly advising their senior candidates that their next career move should be into an independent or interim role. As the profession develops in a more independent mode, it must be careful to learn from the mistakes of the corporate years, if it is to achieve the status, it deserves. Consultants, love it or hate it, that is the word that best describes someone who sells their knowledge, rather than their time like conventional employees, suffer from the never say NO approach of early entrants in to the sector during the nineties. They would accept any contract available and learnt as they went along, relying on the client knowing less than they did. Independent consultants must position themselves as an expert on the subject about which they are most passionate. They must understand how businesses are affected by their area of interest and how they as an individual can impact the performance of the business, through a range of different types of inputs. Most importantly, they must accept that they cannot solve every problem and must be honest both with their client and themselves, about the times it is right to say NO! We are as a profession in the early stages of a process that has not been faced by a professional group, since Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and restructured the clergy. We will see radical changes in the way we operate and experience a redefinition of our relationship with our employers.
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