Talk to human resources professionals, consultants and scholars who study the workplace and you will find two different views of HR.
According to its critics, HR departments can be needlessly bureaucratic, obstructionist, stuck in the "comfort zone" of filling out forms and explaining company benefits, and too closely aligned with the interests of management yet lacking the business knowledge to be effective strategic partners. Dealing with these types of HR departments "is like going to the dentist," says David Sirota, author of The Enthusiastic Employee: How Companies Profit by Giving Workers What They Want (Wharton School Publishing). When people are asked to rate the quality of different functions within their company, he adds, "IT and HR are repeatedly rated the lowest."
The more positive view of HR is that it works directly with senior management, providing crucial input into major business transactions such as mergers and acquisitions and restructurings. In this scenario, HR departments have moved away from the traditional role of administrators -- many of those responsibilities are now outsourced -- to a more creative focus on their prime role, which includes recruiting talent, promoting mobility and career development, and improving organizational effectiveness. "I would not choose HR as a career if we couldn't be a strategic partner with the business," says Kathy Gubanich, managing director of HR at The Vanguard Group. "HR is fortunate to report to the CEO of Vanguard.... If we didn't, it would mean HR's priorities are being set differently."
Peter Cappelli, director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources, recently led a discussion at the Center focused on the question: "What is the role of HR now?" From the 1920s on, Cappelli says, HR was seen as a way to advocate for, and protect, employees -- an orientation that became "quite explicit in the 1950s and beyond as part of an effort by management to prevent unionization.
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