Why HR is a Force for Good

Why do we have HR departments anyway?  

Over the years much has been written on "Why we Hate HR", "Why HR should be split up" among business units, and why HR professionals have to change. Each of these articles criticizes our beloved HR team for their inability to drive business value, their bureaucratic practices, and their lack of skills in business and analytics. And it turns out we HR professionals agree! Our most recent Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends survey (3,200+ respondents) showed that HR professionals give ourselves a C- in our ability to drive business impact.

Well as an analyst who meets with hundreds of HR teams and studies the industry in detail, I have a suggested new idea.  We in HR (and I consider myself part of the community) really do have a higher calling. We are a force for good in business and the economy, and when we do our jobs well, we are the cheerleaders, stewards, and ombudsman for people and work around the world.

Consider the dynamic that takes place in almost every company I've visited. Business leaders push for product innovation, sales results, and operational financial performance. They set goals, hold people accountable, and hire (and fire) people based on their ability to deliver value. Their #1 concern is "getting the job done" and in most cases their own careers, earnings, and success is based on business results, not necessarily making employees happy.

Of course many business leaders have learned (and this is particularly true today) that these results are not possible without world class management skills, excellent employee programs, a great work environment, and innovative and powerful tools for learning, engagement, and work-life management.

The problem is that these latter programs are actually hard to build and manage, and most business managers don't have the time to craft them.  Enter HR:  the craftsmen of people practices throughout the organization.  (Read my article Why HR Professionals are like Master Carpenters.)

If you think about this on a broader, personal and societal level, the job of HR is to "do good" in the world.  We translate the demands of the business into the programs, environment, and solutions that make work good for people. And that means we have to extremely vigilant, innovative, and bold. 

This whole theme came to me over the last few months as I was reading Laszlo Bock's new book Work Rules!: Insights from Google that will Transform how you Live and Lead.

If you read the book you'll find that Google, like most other great companies, has innovated and experimented with many people-programs, some of which worked, and some of which did not. 

Throughout this process, what you realize is that HR's job at Google (called People Operations) is to make life better. Yes, that's what Laszlo talks about - how he, and his team, can really make every employee's life "better" at Google.

Think about the pressures we all face in business, work, and our careers today.

• Millennials are now the biggest cohort in business, and they are scrambling to get ahead, develop themselves, find the right job, and build a professional network. We have to help them rapidly progress and learn to become leaders.
• Technology has made work a 24x7 experience, with more information and distractions than every before. We call this the "overwhelmed employee" problem - and it's HR's job to make work simpler, improve productivity, and develop new tools to make our jobs easier.
• Mission, purpose, and culture have become critical parts of a business's customer proposition, and also its employment brand. HR has to monitor, measure, and continuously improve the organizational culture in every possible way.

This week I met with the head of HR from one of the world's largest software companies, and she has worked with the CEO for almost 17 years. She told me that regularly the CEO and President come up to her and ask her "what's going on out there?" "how are people feeling?" "what can we be doing better?"

Her job, as I hear about in many companies, is to be that "force for good." She is expected to have the pulse on the organization from top to bottom, understand what's working and what's not, and come to leadership with bold, innovative ideas to make their company the best place to work in their industry.

When we do our jobs well, we in HR do really make the world a better place. We give people better jobs, better careers, and better organizations to join. We improve employee wellness, we reduce employee stress, and we help leaders be the leaders they desperately want to be.

Even HR software companies are starting to understand this new mission. Oracle is now shipping applications for employee wellness, reputation management, and competitions (team activities). Halogen Software and Ceridian are now embedding personality testing and coaching tools into their systems. A wide array of new employee activity tools, engagement monitoring, feedback, and group management products is now hitting the market.

Oracle's New My Wellness App, embedded in Oracle HCM Cloud

I know this article sounds a little fluffy to many of you, but after almost two decades studying and researching HR, learning, and the recruitment industry, I realize now more than ever that we do have a higher calling. When HR and our peers remind ourselves of this, we will have the inspiration and energy to add value every day.

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About the Author: Josh Bersin is the founder and Principal of Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP, a leading research and advisory firm focused on corporate leadership, talent, learning, and the intersection between work and life. Josh is a published author on Forbes, a LinkedIn Influencer, and has appeared on Bloomberg, NPR, and the Wall Street Journal, and speaks at industry conferences and to corporate HR departments around the world. You can contact Josh on twitter at @josh_bersin and follow him at https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/bersin. Josh's personal blog is at www.joshbersin.com.

Other Recent Articles by Josh Bersin:

• New Research: HR now Challenged in New World of Work
• The Important Topic of Women in Business: What Men Can Do
• Becoming Irresistible: A New Model for Employee Engagement
• The Geeks have Arrived: People Analytics is Here
• Leaving IBM was Tough but Necessary
• Are you an Overwhelmed Employee? What to do about it.
• Why People Management is Replacing Talent Management
• Putting the Strategic into Strategic HR
  
• The Alliance: A Manifesto for 21st Century Talent Management
  
• Interview with Reid Hoffman about Talent in the Networked Age
  
• Why it's time to Redesign HR
  
• How to Build The Irresistible Organization
• Learning to Be Yourself
• The Secret to Effective Motivation: Purpose
  
• The Myth of the Bell Curve
• What's Good for Women is Good for Business
• How to Make Work Fun
• Why we Do Need The HR Department
• Are Performance Appraisals Doomed?
• How I Hire: Trust Your Gut
• The MOOC Market Takes Off
• Employee Retention: The Time is Now
• The Datafication of HR
• Quantified Self: Meet the Quantified Employee