Rangoli Department.... I am so sorry, it is actually Human Resource Management Department. But then who is to blame for this confusion?

It was year 2008 when I visited first MBA Institute to recruit 
HR Students as trainee’s (being called as “Pitstopper” in TCS) 
and I was aghast to see the reality -

- In the class of 30, the total students were only 22 (while for 
all other specializations like Marketing, Finance, operations 
etc. it was difficult to get seat in the same college)
- Of those 22, the gender ratio was not skewed but upside down, 
ie. 19 girls and only 3 boys.
- On further enquiry I found that most of the girls opted for HR 
on parent’s direction (not advice) as this being easy going role 
without much expectations.

In last 15 years things must have improved a bit but largely you 
would agree with me that there is critical shortage of talent in 
HR Function and you would vouch that its because of this you see 
that a function which has appx. 90% females in lower grades have 
appx. 70% males in top grades including Head’s of HR for various 
organizations.
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An entrepreneur starts the company and her focus for initial few 
years is to somehow make it stand. So she focuses on only 
essentials, while marketing, sales, production of goods/services 
are important tasks and which are done by handpicked/known people 
with direct link to owner herself. With time as company grows to 
20-30 employees, it requires a receptionist, who happens to be 
multi-talented and gradually takes over responsibility of managing 
all administrative tasks to run the office. In few years the company 
has bigger headcount and with that this multi talented lady has 
already earned trust of the owner so is being made responsible to 
manage another function ie. Human Resources. And the journey of HR 
function begins in the organization.

Once the organization reaches 15-20 Mn USD in revenue, a need is 
strongly felt to have a seasoned HR Professional to lead the department 
with clear HR Functions. But…… data has a very different story to tell.

- Of the companies gets registered, 20% fail within first year.
- 65.7% companies fail within 10 years of establishment
- Of the remaining 4.3%, less then 1% reach 1 Mn in revenue.
- Of the 1% that reach 1 Mn, less then .1% reach 10 Mn in revenue
- And finally of the .1% only 1932 organizations worldwide have 
reached 1 Bn mark.

The point being that almost 90% of the organizations never get to see 
an organized and mature HR Department and hence the students passing 
out from college befits the initial needs of industry to be doing 
jack of all trade tasks of so called HR function with uncertain 
outcomes.
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Human Resource Management as function has matured over 3 centuries of 
existence and its relevance became evident in last 75 years. The overall 
purpose of Human Resources (HR) is to ensure that the organization is 
able to achieve success through people.

Various organizations use different term for this department to include, 
“Human Capital Management”, "organizational management", "manpower 
management", "talent management", "personnel management", "workforce 
management", and simply "people management" but more or less the 
expectations from the department are -

- aligning Human Resources strategy with business strategy
- re-engineering organization processes
- listening and responding to employees
- managing transformation and change

At the macro-level, HR is in charge of overseeing organizational?
“leadership”?and?“culture”. At operational level HR ensures compliance 
to labor laws depending on jurisdiction.

In circumstances where employees desire and are legally authorized to 
hold a?collective bargaining agreement, HR will typically also serve 
as the company's primary liaison with the employee's representatives 
(usually a?labor union).

While having said above, The?Chief HR Officer?or HR Director is the 
highest ranking HR executive in most companies. He or she typically 
reports directly to the?chief executive officer.
In my experience, one can view the maturity of HR as function when 
HR Director is part of board meetings and works very closely with 
the?Board of Directors?on?CEO and other critical role’s succession.
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Above are 3 broad categories of HR that exists in various organizations 
depending on their maturity level but the key point is still the same, 
If HR needs to meaningfully contribute in the success of organization 
by strategizing its recruitment strategies, talent management, 
engagement, rewarding talent and building culture then the focus of 
Industry needs to change in expecting quality which will bring change 
at very grass root level in the kind of people that shall join MBA 
and other specialized courses aspiring to become HR Professionals.

What do you think?