In his article Why We Hate HR Keith Hammonds notes "In a knowledge economy, companies with the best talent win. (F)inding, nurturing, and developing that talent should be one of the most important tasks in a corporation." He goes on to question then why Human Resources departments do such a bad job of it and why so many employees hate HR.
He's missing the point. It's not HR's job any more than company profitability is the responsibility of the Accounting department. Finding, hiring, and retaining the best talent is YOUR job as a manager.
Sure, Accounting keeps track of all the income and expenses. They send out the emails about the needs to cut down on travel expenses and how to fill out the necessary forms. They let us know how we are doing with respect to our profitability goals, but they are a support function. Accounting doesn't control sales. They don't set prices. They don't determine which supplier to buy from or which products to produce. Since they don't control income or expense, how can we hold them responsible for profit? We can't. They just give us in management the information we need to do our job of reaching our profit goals.
It's the same with HR. They can make sure we get appropriate job descriptions written and posted to the company website. They can use their understanding of our company culture to identify applicants who might fit better. They can research salary trends, benefit programs, and competitors' hiring practices. They guide us through the legalities and they produce the reports of staff levels versus budget, of turnover rates, and of employee morale. And because, like Accounting, they are a support function we need to treat them as such. It is our job as management, not theirs, to find, hire, motivate, lead, and retain the best talent.
