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Editorial
Released on December 10, 2015 (posted
on January 15, 2016) This
article originally published on Harvard
Business Review, 76 (1) 124 -134 (1998). Brief overview and
excerpts of the articles as follows.
Human
Resources configuration ineffective, incompetent, and costly
Should
we do away with HR? In recent years, a number of people who study
and write about business-along with many who run businesses-have
been debating that question. The debate arises out of serious and
widespread doubts about HR's contribution to organizational
performance.
Researchers acknowledge that
HR, as it is configured today in many institutions, is indeed
ineffective, incompetent, and costly. But he contends that it
has never been more necessary. The solution, he believes, is to
create an entirely new role for the field that focuses it not on
traditional HR activities, such as staffing and compensation, but on
business results that enrich the company's value to all
stakeholders, and employees.
Researchers elaborates on four broad tasks for HR that would allow
it to help deliver organizational excellence. First, HR should
become a partner in strategy execution. Second, it should become an
expert in the way work is organized and executed. Third, it should
become a champion for employees. And fourth, it should become an
agent of continual change. Fulfilling this agenda would mean that
every one of HR's activities would in some concrete way help a
company better serve its customers or otherwise increase shareholder
value.
Can HR transform itself on its own? Certainly not-in fact, the
primary responsibility for transforming the role of HR, Researcher
says, belongs to the CEO and to every line manager who
works with the HR staff. Competitive success is a function of
organizational excellence, and senior managers must hold HR
accountable for delivering it.
Make no mistake: this new
agenda for HR is a radical departure from the status quo. In most
companies
today,
HR is sanctioned mainly to play policy police and regulatory
watchdog. It handles the paperwork involved in hiring and firing,
manages the bureaucratic aspects of benefits, and administers
compensation decisions made by others. When it is more empowered by
senior management, it might oversee recruiting, manage training and
development programs, or design initiatives to increase workplace
diversity. But the fact remains: the activities of HR appear to
be-and often are disconnected from the real work of the
organization.
The
new agenda, however, would mean that every one of HR's activities
would in some concrete way help the company better serve its
customers or otherwise increase stakeholder value. Can HR transform
itself alone? Absolutely not. In fact, the primary responsibility
for transforming the role of HR belongs to the CEO and to every line
manager who must achieve business goals. The reason? Divisional managers
have ultimate responsibility for
both the processes and the outcomes of the company.
They
are answerable to shareholders for creating economic value, to
customers for creating product or service value, and to employees
for creating workplace value. It follows that they should lead the
way in fully integrating HR into the company's real work. Indeed, to
do so, they must become HR champions themselves. They must
acknowledge that competitive success is a function of organizational
excellence. More important, they must hold HR accountable for
delivering it.
Of
course, the line should not impose the new agenda on the HR
staff. Rather, operating managers and HR managers must form a
partnership to quickly and completely reconceive and reconfigure the
function - to overhaul it from one devoted to activities to one
committed to outcomes. The process will be different in every
organization, but the result will be the same: a business era in
which the question should we do away with HR? will be considered
utterly ridiculous?
Perhaps the greatest
competitive challenge companies face is adjusting to-indeed, embracing nonstop change. They
must be able to learn rapidly and continuously, innovate
ceaselessly, and take on new strategic imperatives faster and
more comfortably. Constant change
means organizations must create
a healthy discomfort with the status
quo, an ability to detect emerging trends
quicker than the competition, an
ability to make rapid decisions, and
the agility to seek new ways
of doing business. To thrive, in other
words, companies will need to be
in a never ending state of transformation, perpetually
creating fundamental, enduring
change.
Reference
Ulrich, D. (1998). A new mandate for human resources, Harvard
Business Review, 76 (1) 124 -134
Related document
Should we do away with HR?
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