A CEO recently told me that companies treat HR like cats treat people. While this might seem like a rather cruel or flippant remark, I pondered on its validity after our conversation. The CEO in question is well respected among his peers and recognised for his leadership capability. He has headed up companies across the world, and managed people from a variety of cultures and backgrounds. He appreciates the competitive advantage that can be gained through effective people management, and has taken the lead in developing himself as a role model for others.
A CEO recently told us that companies treat HR like cats treat people. While this might seem like a rather cruel or flippant remark, we pondered on its validity after our conversation. The CEO in question is well respected among his peers and recognised for his leadership capability. He has headed up companies across the world, and managed people from a variety of cultures and backgrounds. He appreciates the competitive advantage that can be gained through effective people management, and has taken the lead in developing himself as a role model for others.
So why the criticism of HR? If one takes a close look at the heads of HR in the ASX top 100 companies, you’ll quickly find that many of them do not have a HR background. There appears to be a serious lack of confidence on the part of businesses to entrust HR practitioners with a HR leadership role. Sure, businesses are more than willing to place HR practitioners in roles where they can practice what they learned at university. But when it comes to a serious role that must be able to understand and work with executive teams, businesses appear to have a serious reluctance in appointing anyone with HR qualifications.
Which brings me back to our CEO’s comments that companies treat HR like cats treat people. Aloof, distant, supercilious – whatever adjective you’re familiar with to describe cats’ behaviour towards humans. There’s lots of warm and fuzzy rhetoric out there about ‘how people are our best assets’ and ‘HR plays a strategic role within this business’. But many HR practitioners can probably relate to the cat and human synonym, much to their anguish, frustration or even relief at not having to take on serious levels of responsibility.
However, another CEO told us that HR is entering into a transformative phase. This CEO believed that while we have for some time enjoyed paying lip service to any organisation’s human assets, we’re entering a new era where organisations are actually starting to mean it. We guess that means we’re going to see lots more phrases like ‘war for talent’ and ‘most valuable assets’.
More seriously, however, we think it means that we’re going to see more serious corporate players entering the HR profession as it likewise becomes a more serious player in the corporate landscape. Talent that once might have gone through other professions on its path to the CEO’s chair, may soon be marking out HR as a valid career path where they will get noticed and get recognition.
Already many organisations are starting to divert their real talent into the HRarena, implementing programs of real perceived benefit to attract, develop and retain their talented employees.
This is no doubt good news for the profession, however, it also carries with it a warning: if you’re an HR professional going stale and not really getting serious about demonstrating a contribution to the business beyond that which your average domestic cat has to offer, beware of anyone offering you a free trip to the vet.
