In Defense of HR

Before anything else let me start by saying that you won't "hear me" moan about the term "HR" here. We don't need me to repeat it, obviously referring to humans as "resources" is insanely bad but here we are and the polemics on the term won't move us further and movement is what we all so desperately need, so we need to pick our battles and ignore that bit for now.

HR has one of the absolute toughest jobs there is. Few departments of any enterprise have had to live through more upheaval while being entrusted with bigger a job than Human Resources. While over my career I have often been super critical of us collectively when it comes to the job we have done in the realm of HR namely around helping people feel respected, seen and heard, valued and happy at work, the blame for our present status quo lies squarely with the ever-changing demands of the world of work, in particular when it comes to technology.

We haven’t exactly collectively done well and there’s a lot of HumanDebt™ (the equivalent of tech debt for humans - all of the programs, intentions, initiatives and new changes that have been implemented to better the lives of employees but have either not succeeded or not have been completed and their lack of completion adds to the overall value of the debt we have towards our employees) and that’s undeniable but what isn’t under question is the good intentions behind everything.

Whether we have delivered on that D&I initiative or not, whether we have brushed tension or toxicity under the carpet, whether we have remained silent when we should have said something or covered a mistake, whatever we may be guilty of, we are certainly not guilty of having intentionally not delivered on anything because if there’s one thing that’s absolutely true or each and every HR professional is that their heart is in the right place. Whether new “woke HR” or old school and overwhelmed, everyone genuinely wishes for the absolute best for their colleagues and works pretty tirelessly to make it happen so when it doesn’t, when it falls by the wayside or even goes wrong, it is not only demoralising but absolutely never the intention.

It is this heart being invested in their colleagues that makes HumanDebt even harder to take for the HR professional. Most times they aren’t even the architects of any of that debt and it is all legacy from previous colleagues and teams and their previous good intentions, they are often parachuted inside existing active fires which are typically process, regulation, admin of hiring and firing connected, or, worst still, in organisations who have non-active volcanoes worth of secret fires of discontent and toxicity gaining momentum beneath the surface such as burnout and active disengagement and they have to not only fly the plane but change its engine midair as well. And the engine needs a genuine swap. For the older model to be yanked out, the new ones to be fitted and then the switch to be made and the old one to be disposed of. It’s not a switch most feel empowered to do at all and even if they introduce the new one they’ll keep the old engine running “just to be sure” and that doesn’t work, it takes way too much power and expenditure to superfluously keep both running.