HR is no more - why I agree with Octopus Energy

"The Billion Pound Company WITHOUT an HR department!” cried the Daily Mail this week with generous use of caps for added clickbait appeal. 

As someone who has spent approaching 15 years within the “HR” space this struck a professional nerve. I came up with a list of at least 30 reasons why this was total bs just for fun. I had a full on amygdala hijack and let my animal brain run riot. If you want to know what on earth an amygdala hijack is, read Daniel Coleman’s 1996 book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (or just google it). Anyway, how dare Greg Jackson and Octopus Energy personally attack me and my wonderful team! 

Putting my outrage aside I read on. As I did I realised, begrudgingly, that far from disagreeing with Octopus Energy, I thought they had a point. Then the penny dropped; I too was working in a business that did not have an HR Department. This might sound like an odd statement coming from a “Head of People”, but bear with me. 

We don’t use the term “HR” at MVF. We have nothing against folks that do but it’s just not our thing. We do not like the concept that humans are “resources”. People are people. We treat them that way and want every person at MVF to have an incredible experience while they are here and that is the mission of our People Team. 

For those who have not read the article, the premise of Octopus’ idea is simple. Don’t infantalise smart, grown up people. Don’t hire creativity only to stifle it with bureaucracy. Train employees to deal with issues and support them to find their own solutions. Easy to write, hard to do. 

At MVF we have a similar outlook. We believe in avoiding silly rules. We do not create pointless policies. Finger wagging at the majority to police the occasional foolishness of a tiny minority is strictly prohibited (not a silly rule in our opinion) and we believe our managers are most qualified to manage their people. 

It turns out MVF and Octopus are aligned. Invest heavily in training your people, empower them, then get out of their way and let managers manage. Octopus have seemingly decentralised this and let their best people gravitate organically towards the role that would be traditionally fulfilled by “HR” or “People” pros, although at the time of writing there are L&D and Talent Acquisition vacancies at Octopus so all is not lost.  

At MVF our wonderful CPO Ange Pattico chose to design a structure that we all think works very well, but we would say that, wouldn’t we? Our People Team is filled to the brim with world-class professionals with specialist knowledge.

Our job is to share that knowledge, coach our people and step back, but our MVFers always know the People Team have their backs if they need us. 

All businesses are different, there is never one right way and challenging the status quo is to be applauded. If by any chance Greg Jackson is reading this, I would love to buy you a coffee and learn about how it’s all going.

So in summary I agree with you Octopus Energy. The HR Department is dead. Long live the People Team (even if you don’t call it that)!