Human Resource- Losing The Opportunity to Add Value

It is the Human Resource Management that bears the brunt of being a joke in any organization. Human Resource is considered to be for lazy people who do nothing but hire; fire and create salary structures. Very few understand that Human Resource Management is a very critical function, the one which even management leaders cannot do without.

The traditional boundaries of HR management remain at hiring, firing, managing, promoting, appraising and paying the employees. What is not observed is how the HR leaders can add value to the organization outside their boundaries.

Let us look at examples of how HR can lose its value:

-   -If the IT department wants to introduce a new people oriented software in the organisation, do they turn to HR for support or do they turn to the consultant who is supposed to have “better knowledge” of people?

-       -When a particular department is not performing, do the department leaders call HR to diagnose the problem or do they try and solve it themselves?

-     -When the management decides to acquire a new company whose product might be different from the parent company; do they consult the HR leaders to help understand the impact it will have in the long run?

    -What management and leaders today need to understand is that Human Resource  comes with an extra function- Human Resource ‘Development’. This extra function of ‘development’ does not only start and end with employee skill building or team  building- but it has the responsibility of developing and organizational building as  well.

     So, how do HR leaders bring a change in adding more value to an organization?

-     -Leadership is about bringing a change in organizational culture. As a Human Resource leader, one must understand that culture cannot be changed but behavioural changes can happen. Organizational health can be seen through behaviour change

-    -Organizational change will happen slowly- sometimes it will fail at one level and succeed at another level. As a human resource personnel, having a holistic approach helps along with the knowledge of predicting what can happen

-         -Training helps in developing leaders- and so we have special training and development hr managers. But only ten percent of learning happens in classes and by reading material. Rest is learned by developing skills and having the opportunity to practice them. HR leaders need to make the management understand that the scope to apply theoretical learning in practice should be provided to the employees.

  -Looking outside of the traditional HR functions, recognising business needs, recognising the need of other departments can help solve organizational problems. HR leaders should collaborate with the strategic team, the IT team or the Marketing team. HR has the ability to predict what the scope of development is.

HR Leadership plays a strong role in planning and development. Human Resource should serve more on the company management teams and help in assessing company strengths, weaknesses and projections of opportunities and threats.