Ok, so it's not news to many of you, but last summer's bombshell diatribe by Keith Hammond "Why we hate HR" sent shockwaves through the inner sanctum of HR and the business world all jumped on this HR hate-fest. As a card carrying member of the HR collective, I too was stunned and a bit put off. Who was this Fast Company nerd (c'mon kids - have you seen his picture?) to fire such a shot across the heretofore invincible HR machine? Doesn't he know who we are??? Then, as soon as he started the firestorm, he went underground - some sort of sabbatical, which I took as code-word for "hiding under a rock like Salman Rushdie"!
Well, time heals all things (at least for those of us with short memories or attention spans). Last week I was innocently listening to a podast from one of my favorite sources - Landed.FM and was surprised to hear the host interviewing the culprit of the aforementioned attack on HR. I was riveted - expecting the host who is a real HRish kind of guy tangle with his prey. To my surprise, the interview went in a whole different direction.
The short version is, after hearing Hammond's well moderated explanation (well done Peter!) I had to admit, this guy was actually right - HR has put itself in a position to be hated! We keep saying we're a "strategic partner" and demanding our "place at the table", but we are not delivering to earn that. Hate is a pretty strong word, but in business emotions are just that simple and BOY, have we earned this!
Ok, so why expose you to this raw nerve for HR... Simple! You need to have talented people - HR is supposed to deliver candidates with talent AND help you devlelop your staff to have the right skills to compete for business!
Your mission is to get nose to nose with your HR people and tell them you need them to deliver. Hold their feet to the fire to help you acquire, develop, deploy and retain great talent.
This is just one more important part of being a Guerilla - they take on every enemy that gets in their way, and they try to convert even their enemies to be their allies.
Carry on troops!
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There are two positions in a company that people should avoid intracting with at all costs. Controllers and HR Managers. Neither one of them is a friend and I have never seen one that was actually human. I don't know how anyone goes to sleep at night in these positions and maintains a soul. If you go to any of them with a problem they smile listen and then make your life hell. HR managers protect the company and are thrilled to use thier positions to torture and humiliate the helpless. When I meet people that tell me they work in HR I smile and get away quickly, but in my head I think, "poor soul, your parents should have raise you better". I once had a drug addict, lap dancing HR manager (fortune 100) pull me into a warning meeting to tell me that I was not a Team player, then we left the meeting together and walked to the employee cafeteria where they had the employee recognition awards. She called me up (less than an hour after the meeting for not being a team palyer) and gave me 2 employee team player awards. Wacko's all, sorry. Run, run, run.
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