How Not To Be A Strategic HR

An HR’s job has always been under a magnifying glass of a microscope. People have always wondered why there is a need of such a department in any organization. The work that is done in routine can always be done by somebody as a part time apart from handling other meaningful tasks. And what has remained in position ever since is the HR sample on the slide and the microscope. All that have come and left are the looking through set of eyes of scrutinizers. Nothing conducive has said to evolve in the species of HR until now that is over the past decade. A new stream of science has intertwined and has been showing a prosperous seat by the business class window of the management aircraft. Suddenly there’s a buzz called Strategic HR and everybody wants to be in the hot seat. Or they don’t?

Aspirations are many yet inputs and the processing levels are varied. For how many HR’s would go beyond the routine administrative work? Understanding business is not an easy task and certainly not a day’s job. There are always people with super smart rationale on all matters and though HR folks are said to be the ones who start the ball rolling for a change, yet the 8 hours job of rolling appointment letters, transfer orders seem to be the most lucrative task in hand. There still exist 70% of individuals for whom an HR’s job is said to be something that has nothing to do with what others do! Some of the best reasons why these certain 70% classify under the category ‘How Not to Be a Strategic HR’ is:

1. They say it’s not my job to keep a tab on other departments proceedings. For all that they may do throughout is be given a vacancy count from respective departments and an incessant search for the most suitable profile. This recruitment life cycle never ceases and as demands raise so do the supply without the blink of an eye.
2. For these certain people recruitments are the only domain that they associate with their inclination towards HR, so it’s all about playing this game of collecting the data bank, screening, short listing, and handing them over for final interviews. And it stops there to begin with the data bank stage all over again. It’s immaterial whether there was a final fit between the employers and the employee. Which many times lead to immediate exiting due to unstructured policies.
3. Unconcern to understand the nature of the industry they work with. Many a time’s saturation in one industry makes an individual drift towards the opposite. Say from an IT industry to a Manufacturing, where the cultures are juxtaposed. So policies that worked out previously in an excellent way in the IT industry may not move pillars in the Manufacturing. Or the inability to fit oneself in the climate of the organization posing severe threats to the future of the organization, if one occupies a decision making position.
4. The same genre of people who know the in and out of Human Resource yet fail to interlink the Marketing decision to theirs and their resourcefulness to the Finance folks.
5. They land up in sticky situations by not knowing the main product or service of their organization but relentlessly ramble underneath the PMS cloud and 360 degree appraisals. So much so they start viewing training and development needs and the budget for the organization as different articles. As long as HR is able to carry out it’s functions it’s immaterial to them whether recruiting costs are tipping the iceberg or unnecessary expenditure on whitewashing department are overbearing to the projects in hand.
6. When these folks are unable to comprehend the operation flow and cycle of product so much so they cannot make out the differences between two stages of completely different processes and do not leave a moment to smirk and flaunt their ignorance. With the added attitude that says “I’m an HR, why should I bother whether department X comes in process before department Y or not. It is for them to see the quality management. My work ends in satisfying their manpower needs.”
7. When policies aren’t structured to the organizations needs and are air lifted from elsewhere. Or best when the organization is said to be under the Zoo culture, where everybody is monkeying around and there is too much interference from everywhere such that the HR department loses its essence and authority over things.
8. When aptitude is marked by the ignorance of the obvious and one believes on running on the single track to achievement, where targets mean monthly realization of supply and demand and fear of the unknown makes them explore less on the shady sides of the organizations fumbles.
9. When routine work seems to be the best task that involves growing people within the organization by implying on the fact that HR folks are contributing in making work easier and serving the employees at their best in their smallest of the needs.

The list can get endless but the crux of the theme is, do we consider HR as a never changing sample, or a slowly evolving one which may take another decade to grow out of its skin or a new species very much modified and innovated in a new package of intellectuals who not just own the reins of the industry but know how to dig the underground lines at the right depths.