Dear HR Professionals,
As i observed the responsibility of all professional to develop platform for new professionals and also creating the importance of their profession.
But from the last 5 years, what I feel Importance of HR is going down day by day in any organization ( Specially in NCR region).
Pls think positively and discuss what can be done.........
Regards
Dr Ashish Kumar
From India, New Delhi
1As i observed the responsibility of all professional to develop platform for new professionals and also creating the importance of their profession.
But from the last 5 years, what I feel Importance of HR is going down day by day in any organization ( Specially in NCR region).
Pls think positively and discuss what can be done.........
Regards
Dr Ashish Kumar
From India, New Delhi
Hello Dr. Ashish,
It is actually a sad fact that the HR department is always sidelined compared to other departments in most companies.
I do not know the actual reasons about this, but from some discussions that I had whilst in college and during my internship with one of the reputed firms, I happen to trace down a few reasons -
1) HR is observed as a cost center as we are to device some or other motivational things which may have some expense.
2) Training, Recruiting, Engaging, Payroll etc is HR's responsibility and these does have their own cost.
3) The efforts of HR is a soft skill and can't be measured in factual manner as the finance or marketing department does. They can claim an increase of 10% or 50% in the turnover or sales or profits. How are we to claim we engaged 50% more employees compared to previous year(s)
In order to change the management's view to HR, it is important to start measuring our work as much as possible. We too will have to speak numbers. We need to be sure that we are doing something to give to the company. We first, ourselves should be confident that yes, our efforts is contributing to the company's vision and mission.
As a result of this, my summer internship project was to study about HR Metrics and trying to develop it. I wrote about this and got my article on HR Metrics published with IIM-Shillong's magazine. (Here's the link for your kind perusal)
http://iimsushr.files.wordpress.com/...ruary-2012.pdf
Scroll down to pg 16 (of PDF which conincides to pg 13 of the booklet)
Apart from this, I would love to hear from seniors about their idea in making HR department as respectable as other.
From India, Mumbai
It is actually a sad fact that the HR department is always sidelined compared to other departments in most companies.
I do not know the actual reasons about this, but from some discussions that I had whilst in college and during my internship with one of the reputed firms, I happen to trace down a few reasons -
1) HR is observed as a cost center as we are to device some or other motivational things which may have some expense.
2) Training, Recruiting, Engaging, Payroll etc is HR's responsibility and these does have their own cost.
3) The efforts of HR is a soft skill and can't be measured in factual manner as the finance or marketing department does. They can claim an increase of 10% or 50% in the turnover or sales or profits. How are we to claim we engaged 50% more employees compared to previous year(s)
In order to change the management's view to HR, it is important to start measuring our work as much as possible. We too will have to speak numbers. We need to be sure that we are doing something to give to the company. We first, ourselves should be confident that yes, our efforts is contributing to the company's vision and mission.
As a result of this, my summer internship project was to study about HR Metrics and trying to develop it. I wrote about this and got my article on HR Metrics published with IIM-Shillong's magazine. (Here's the link for your kind perusal)
http://iimsushr.files.wordpress.com/...ruary-2012.pdf
Scroll down to pg 16 (of PDF which conincides to pg 13 of the booklet)
Apart from this, I would love to hear from seniors about their idea in making HR department as respectable as other.
From India, Mumbai
The problem is that many a management does not know the true value of an HR function. They forget that it is all about resources just like other resources that are used to build a product or service; employees are the Human Resources and are just as important as other resources.
HR must be able make management understand the importance of human resources.
I have seen numerous posts about companies worried about people leaving and joining the competition. Why are they concerned about this?
They do not realise that this is just like capital flight, when capital is withdrawn from the stock market or from banks then the economy suffers.
When employees leave, the company suffers.
The trouble is that managements sets up an HR function but do not really know why they have done this and use it as the recruitment wing and for policing employees which then turns it into a pure cost center. No, it is not, it is an investment in an important resource called EMPLOYEES.
Many managements think training if just as expense, they are wrong, once again it is an investment which will bear fruits down the line.
I have noticed that most SME's and family owned businesses do not give the importance due to HR since they do not know the exact role of HR.
My suggestion is that the HR function in such organisations should write white papers on how a good HR group functions and how good HR policies are really investments and not just costs.
This is of course easy said than done, but the HR group has to stand up and demand its worth as a function that helps build an organisation.
I trust all those in this function will wake up and start to showcase the importance of HR more as an investment in Human Resources than just a group who does what it is told and meant only for policing the employees. They have to do all the bad work.
They are the BAD COP where as management is the GOOD COP.
Best regards and keep your heads high you are very valuable to those who know your value.
From India, Hyderabad
HR must be able make management understand the importance of human resources.
I have seen numerous posts about companies worried about people leaving and joining the competition. Why are they concerned about this?
They do not realise that this is just like capital flight, when capital is withdrawn from the stock market or from banks then the economy suffers.
When employees leave, the company suffers.
The trouble is that managements sets up an HR function but do not really know why they have done this and use it as the recruitment wing and for policing employees which then turns it into a pure cost center. No, it is not, it is an investment in an important resource called EMPLOYEES.
Many managements think training if just as expense, they are wrong, once again it is an investment which will bear fruits down the line.
I have noticed that most SME's and family owned businesses do not give the importance due to HR since they do not know the exact role of HR.
My suggestion is that the HR function in such organisations should write white papers on how a good HR group functions and how good HR policies are really investments and not just costs.
This is of course easy said than done, but the HR group has to stand up and demand its worth as a function that helps build an organisation.
I trust all those in this function will wake up and start to showcase the importance of HR more as an investment in Human Resources than just a group who does what it is told and meant only for policing the employees. They have to do all the bad work.
They are the BAD COP where as management is the GOOD COP.
Best regards and keep your heads high you are very valuable to those who know your value.
From India, Hyderabad
Hi,
HR Depts in organisations as said above are crucial because I believe human resource is very crucial and vital part of organisation.No organisation will ever exist without this.The Mangement and the bussiness owners are also well aware of this fact. Then How come,We Hr people than still say the importance of hr has gone down over the years in the organisation.My view about this is - Hr people many times fail to bridge the gap between the Managment and employees on bussiness understaning/purpose/perspectives,which is the core function of hr dept only.Unfortunately in most of the cases I have observed that HR is found to be more inclined towards the interest of Management while lacking in having grip over the employees, thus resulting in empoyee engagements/retention problems.in turn Management suffers on production/service front and the blame comes to Hr dept.
However,Management of any organisation needs Hr support in a manner that will support business growth along with its employees in a most cost effective way.The HR People therefore in my view should ensure more focus on trust and fath building between management and employees apart from looking in to work profiles of employees/hr adminstration rather than worrying about management not giving importance to hr etc.
Lets have positive side of people with us and I m sure every hr will be a successfull and equally important part of organisation.
Thanks
Bijay
From India, Vadodara
HR Depts in organisations as said above are crucial because I believe human resource is very crucial and vital part of organisation.No organisation will ever exist without this.The Mangement and the bussiness owners are also well aware of this fact. Then How come,We Hr people than still say the importance of hr has gone down over the years in the organisation.My view about this is - Hr people many times fail to bridge the gap between the Managment and employees on bussiness understaning/purpose/perspectives,which is the core function of hr dept only.Unfortunately in most of the cases I have observed that HR is found to be more inclined towards the interest of Management while lacking in having grip over the employees, thus resulting in empoyee engagements/retention problems.in turn Management suffers on production/service front and the blame comes to Hr dept.
However,Management of any organisation needs Hr support in a manner that will support business growth along with its employees in a most cost effective way.The HR People therefore in my view should ensure more focus on trust and fath building between management and employees apart from looking in to work profiles of employees/hr adminstration rather than worrying about management not giving importance to hr etc.
Lets have positive side of people with us and I m sure every hr will be a successfull and equally important part of organisation.
Thanks
Bijay
From India, Vadodara
Hello Bijay,
A very nice post. Agree to your view points but not completely as I believe, there is always another side to the coin. But often we just fail to flip it to see the other side...
It is not the HR people who feel that value of HR has gone down but the way the management treats HR on the whole makes us percieve this...
1) Seldom companies take HR views in strategy forming of business.
2) We have CEO, CFO, COO... heard of CHRO? Very less again (and is negligible)
3) Ever faced this situation - When the Marketing head goes to the CFO to have budget him higher amount so that he can give performance linked incentives to the sales team to boost their morale and the CFO obliged. But when the HR head goes with similar request so that he can give a training the same sales force with say some new software which will boost their productivity, this is treated as cost and not investment.
4) Have we not seen that many companies just bring aboard any person in the seat of HR whereas they check for proper experience and qualification when it comes to marketing and finance as well as operations?
5) Don't our management expect us to speak number and volumes like out counterparts do?
6) Have we not faced questions like - What improvement have your so and so training session or employee engagement plan did? It just instead washed away my capital...
7) Is it easy to think the human efforts equal to the capital that we trade in the market????
Again to reinforce what I said earlier would like to cite an example...
Being the only HR in my current employment, it becomes indeed very difficult for me to be walking exactly in between the two different groups - management and staff.
Yet, managed to develop policies that is neutral to both. Which does not take side of any one party but allows to grow mutually.
What to do when the management appreciates the efforts, recognizes the efforts, then fails to implement the ideas????
It is not that they are not complying with statutory requirement but somethings above the minimum requirement is doing about employee engagement. But those are just read, appreciated and scrapped off... What should we do in such case?
Fortunately my staff members know that I try my best and hence are not against me, but they are dissatisfied.
The only reason perhaps is that we can't assure the management that if they implement this plan, 50% of engagement will soar.... not because we are not confident if or not our plan will work, but because -
1) We are unsure of the reaction from the staff's end
2) Unsure of how long would the person take to be productive (say post training or so)
3) Unsure of the patience level of management
4) Unsure of the market trends that wil have an impact on the situation.
One of the reasons that HR can't talk numbers is - while in account we are aware that 2+2 will always be 4.... in HR we do not know if 2+2 training will improve the skills of individual 4 times....
From India, Mumbai
A very nice post. Agree to your view points but not completely as I believe, there is always another side to the coin. But often we just fail to flip it to see the other side...
It is not the HR people who feel that value of HR has gone down but the way the management treats HR on the whole makes us percieve this...
1) Seldom companies take HR views in strategy forming of business.
2) We have CEO, CFO, COO... heard of CHRO? Very less again (and is negligible)
3) Ever faced this situation - When the Marketing head goes to the CFO to have budget him higher amount so that he can give performance linked incentives to the sales team to boost their morale and the CFO obliged. But when the HR head goes with similar request so that he can give a training the same sales force with say some new software which will boost their productivity, this is treated as cost and not investment.
4) Have we not seen that many companies just bring aboard any person in the seat of HR whereas they check for proper experience and qualification when it comes to marketing and finance as well as operations?
5) Don't our management expect us to speak number and volumes like out counterparts do?
6) Have we not faced questions like - What improvement have your so and so training session or employee engagement plan did? It just instead washed away my capital...
7) Is it easy to think the human efforts equal to the capital that we trade in the market????
Again to reinforce what I said earlier would like to cite an example...
Being the only HR in my current employment, it becomes indeed very difficult for me to be walking exactly in between the two different groups - management and staff.
Yet, managed to develop policies that is neutral to both. Which does not take side of any one party but allows to grow mutually.
What to do when the management appreciates the efforts, recognizes the efforts, then fails to implement the ideas????
It is not that they are not complying with statutory requirement but somethings above the minimum requirement is doing about employee engagement. But those are just read, appreciated and scrapped off... What should we do in such case?
Fortunately my staff members know that I try my best and hence are not against me, but they are dissatisfied.
The only reason perhaps is that we can't assure the management that if they implement this plan, 50% of engagement will soar.... not because we are not confident if or not our plan will work, but because -
1) We are unsure of the reaction from the staff's end
2) Unsure of how long would the person take to be productive (say post training or so)
3) Unsure of the patience level of management
4) Unsure of the market trends that wil have an impact on the situation.
One of the reasons that HR can't talk numbers is - while in account we are aware that 2+2 will always be 4.... in HR we do not know if 2+2 training will improve the skills of individual 4 times....
From India, Mumbai
The situation that you have written is true not only for NCR, but most other places too. However its only the HR Professionals that are to be blamed. Most of the times they don't have any knowledge of the business. they believe that saying goody goody things (nice sounding words & management jargon from their HR books) will serve the purpose. But people want to see the results. And it is here that HR fails miserably.
Further the HR guy is often the most insecure person in the organization. The first thing that any Finance or accounts guy does is to get a number of consultants for various jobs. But HR guys would not do that. They feel that if they get consultants, management would question them "What are you here for?". They go about trying to do everything themselves & fail miserably. That's why only they are seen as cost centers, although finance is more of a cost center than HR.
From India, Mumbai
Further the HR guy is often the most insecure person in the organization. The first thing that any Finance or accounts guy does is to get a number of consultants for various jobs. But HR guys would not do that. They feel that if they get consultants, management would question them "What are you here for?". They go about trying to do everything themselves & fail miserably. That's why only they are seen as cost centers, although finance is more of a cost center than HR.
From India, Mumbai
Hello VMS,
I, as HR, would want to share the blame with every other person higher to the HR department.
As of talking numbers, I explained very well why HR can't speak numbers. Because we are dealing with human who are unpredictable.
Today someone may give 100% of his efforts. Tomorrow perhaps he is somewhat unwell and his efforts falls to 80%.
It is just as a machine but machines are any time predictable because human made them they know the ifs and whys.
Human have been crafted by God and we'd not know what will happen in the very next instance.
Another thing, even if we put forward certain strategies, how welcoming are they?
I gave you a personal example, I have put forth policies that would help the company grow, foster healthy competition in the staff and hence can mutually grow... The management appreciated my efforts but then failed to implement it. When asked, the management said, it's too early to implement. It's too idealistic... We can't implement... Whatever was suggested is being implemented elsewhere.... But the problem is management fears something else which I can't describe here...
Secondly... I have a personal note of how appraisals work here... Thanks that I am working in a small firm - you get to know everything happening in each department... and I don't think people will be surprised if I would say one department is favored over any other departments...
The general idea that most management has is -
Marketing is the most important - They bring us money
Finance the second - they manage our funds and help us keep profitable
Operations third - because they're the reason we're selling
Lastly the HR -
We need to realize the fact that all the departments are equally important and we can't rank them in any order because in the absence of any one department, the whole working will be hampered.... and if you think I'm wrong, you can try this at your firms and have a check....
From India, Mumbai
I, as HR, would want to share the blame with every other person higher to the HR department.
As of talking numbers, I explained very well why HR can't speak numbers. Because we are dealing with human who are unpredictable.
Today someone may give 100% of his efforts. Tomorrow perhaps he is somewhat unwell and his efforts falls to 80%.
It is just as a machine but machines are any time predictable because human made them they know the ifs and whys.
Human have been crafted by God and we'd not know what will happen in the very next instance.
Another thing, even if we put forward certain strategies, how welcoming are they?
I gave you a personal example, I have put forth policies that would help the company grow, foster healthy competition in the staff and hence can mutually grow... The management appreciated my efforts but then failed to implement it. When asked, the management said, it's too early to implement. It's too idealistic... We can't implement... Whatever was suggested is being implemented elsewhere.... But the problem is management fears something else which I can't describe here...
Secondly... I have a personal note of how appraisals work here... Thanks that I am working in a small firm - you get to know everything happening in each department... and I don't think people will be surprised if I would say one department is favored over any other departments...
The general idea that most management has is -
Marketing is the most important - They bring us money
Finance the second - they manage our funds and help us keep profitable
Operations third - because they're the reason we're selling
Lastly the HR -
We need to realize the fact that all the departments are equally important and we can't rank them in any order because in the absence of any one department, the whole working will be hampered.... and if you think I'm wrong, you can try this at your firms and have a check....
From India, Mumbai
Dear members,
very truely said. This situation is every where not only in NCR. Management do believe HR as a cost center. But we have to try from our side make them believe that Hr is not a cost center, where as its investment for making further growth of the organization. An HR recruiter can show the numbers of employees hired. The HR is a bridge between the employer and the employee. Its a backbone without which organization cant stand for long. We have to manage both the organization and the employees. We don't have that much liberty as other departments do have, but we do, no other department can do. Every department has its own importance and that what management has to understand.
HR has role for organizational and employee growth. We have to maintain a good retention rate, that's is one of our number.
From India, Mumbai
very truely said. This situation is every where not only in NCR. Management do believe HR as a cost center. But we have to try from our side make them believe that Hr is not a cost center, where as its investment for making further growth of the organization. An HR recruiter can show the numbers of employees hired. The HR is a bridge between the employer and the employee. Its a backbone without which organization cant stand for long. We have to manage both the organization and the employees. We don't have that much liberty as other departments do have, but we do, no other department can do. Every department has its own importance and that what management has to understand.
HR has role for organizational and employee growth. We have to maintain a good retention rate, that's is one of our number.
From India, Mumbai
Hi, Ankita
"Have you ever imagined a situation about a hr leader with such a repute that if he leaves an organisation, then all other followers(employees) also walk out and follow him without a second thought."
Hr people in the industry are there for people's management.Managing people is not simple thing,they are not machines and their performance can not be set and predicted.That is how today in one of our training sessions we were trying to discuss about - How services can be measured or how the services performance can be evaluated? I m of the opinion that hr people are more like the service providers to an organisation and hence they find it difficult to evaluate the services of each of its employees and themselves as well.Accordingly in most cases hr fails in convincing the management on these aspects.
Every management or bussiness owner expects and feel happy when they see that employees are working entusiastically and contributing 100%.Hr is expected to bring about and accomplish this expectation of management through his skills - I call this skill - "winning people and giving people their share'.Here I Strongly feel that For "winning" and "giving" both words are co-related to or attributed towards management by hr person and hr expects that management should lookout and contribute for winning the people as well as giving their share.No doubt Management will always be ready to give the best of the share to employees but management has kept the hr person to win the people on his behalf.and it is the point where many of hr people fail to understant their role and co relate it with the management.And this is the only point where the conflict of management and hr begins and hence the question of faith, loyalty, dedication,contribution,retetion, etc arises.I may be missing certain realities on groung but my experience says Hr person is the people leader in an organisation and he is the one who can bring about major changes in the organisation by winning the people and thus convince the every management that they are Human resource managers and equally important rather more important than any other verticle in the industry.
These are my views and members pls forgive me if I m wrong.
Thanks
Bijay
From India, Vadodara
"Have you ever imagined a situation about a hr leader with such a repute that if he leaves an organisation, then all other followers(employees) also walk out and follow him without a second thought."
Hr people in the industry are there for people's management.Managing people is not simple thing,they are not machines and their performance can not be set and predicted.That is how today in one of our training sessions we were trying to discuss about - How services can be measured or how the services performance can be evaluated? I m of the opinion that hr people are more like the service providers to an organisation and hence they find it difficult to evaluate the services of each of its employees and themselves as well.Accordingly in most cases hr fails in convincing the management on these aspects.
Every management or bussiness owner expects and feel happy when they see that employees are working entusiastically and contributing 100%.Hr is expected to bring about and accomplish this expectation of management through his skills - I call this skill - "winning people and giving people their share'.Here I Strongly feel that For "winning" and "giving" both words are co-related to or attributed towards management by hr person and hr expects that management should lookout and contribute for winning the people as well as giving their share.No doubt Management will always be ready to give the best of the share to employees but management has kept the hr person to win the people on his behalf.and it is the point where many of hr people fail to understant their role and co relate it with the management.And this is the only point where the conflict of management and hr begins and hence the question of faith, loyalty, dedication,contribution,retetion, etc arises.I may be missing certain realities on groung but my experience says Hr person is the people leader in an organisation and he is the one who can bring about major changes in the organisation by winning the people and thus convince the every management that they are Human resource managers and equally important rather more important than any other verticle in the industry.
These are my views and members pls forgive me if I m wrong.
Thanks
Bijay
From India, Vadodara
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