Inhuman Resources

Jack Welch offers some cutting thoughts on HR departments:

In the wide-ranging Q-and-A with Claire Shipman, Welch took HR professionals to task for playing the victim a little too often. “I’ve seen too many organizations where HR whines about their role,” Welch said.

If you want senior management to take you seriously, he said, “get out of the picnic, birthday card, and insurance forms business.”

Instead, he told the crowd, their focus should be on building trust throughout the company and developing recruitment and retention strategies that attract the best workers in good times and bad. “Your job is to raise the quality of the team.”

I have frequently been very underwhelmed by the personnel human-resources departments at many companies — large and small — for whom I have worked in the United States and Israel. Too many of them have been essentially useless, if not downright harmful.

It starts, perhaps logically, with the hiring function. One Massachusetts hospital fired me from my marketing management position on my second day because I had the audacity to ask a few pointed questions during the orientation rather than be a nice, little sponge like everyone else and absorb the cliche speeches and videos. (They hired a former journalist, for crying out loud.) “The hospital” had “determined” that my personality was not good match for the corporate culture. And don’t get me started on the farcical sexual-harassment video.

At one high-tech company in Tel Aviv, a person in HR took me and another new hire out to lunch. Officially, it was a getting-to-know-you thing, but I was sure the manager went back with a full report on our personalities and capabilities. The hiring interviews were enough pressure — HR should leave the schmooze-based analysis for my boss. They did not even know what I did on a day-to-day basis. HR managers usually cannot do what the employee of a given department does on a day-to-day basis, especially in fields like high-tech and finance.

But it goes beyond my personal experiences. I recently read an article (which I cannot find now) reporting that people were dumbing-down their resumes because many large corporations have changed their resume-filtering software to exclude former C-level employees because are overqualified. (In this economy, even erstwhile CEOs need a job!)

HR usually makes the first cull of potential job applicants, whether through computers or eyeballs. But they always stick ruthlessly to pointless checklists — no one, for example, without a college degree is worthy of an entry-level position — that may rob a department of someone who could be tailored into a great asset and resource. When a person looks at dozens of resumes every day, it is too easy to see the person and instead reduce every CV to a collection of yes-he-has or no-he-does-not-have checkmarks.

When I was the director of a sales department here in Israel, I went through every CV myself. I made the time to do it. The manager of a department knows exactly what he needs; HR does not.

But if HR should not play a significant role in hiring, what is left for them to do? Every HR person I have ever known has told me that they went into the field because they like working with people. But, in reality, their jobs seem to involve looking at pieces of paper, keeping abreast of labor law, and acting as enforcers of company codes. What fun.

I have always envisioned HR departments as being something similar to the ombudsmen that most major newspapers have. In journalism, the ombudsman represents the readers. He is appointed by the editor or publisher to a specific term of office, investigates complaints about stories (or whatever), and writes an impartial critique of the situations. Most importantly, he criticizes the newspaper — and even individual writers and editors — whenever he thinks it is justified.

Since labor unions are increasingly irrelevant, HR departments could transition to being the ones who represent the employees. If a manager treats an employee badly, HR could investigate in a neutral manner and make a ruling. Most importantly, HR could have the power to decide that the company or manager acted wrongly — even if making such a decision would go against the best interests of the company as a whole. The CEO or chairman of the board could appoint the vice president of HR to a specific term of office during which he could not be fired (except in special cases, like doing something illegal). Now that would inspire workplace morale! And HR managers would finally fulfill their dreams of working with people rather than pieces of paper.

I hate seeing HR managers as the police as much as anyone, but employees frequently have nowhere to turn when the boss slams any given door in their face. Perhaps a revolution in human-resources is needed.