Spare a though for HR officially the most over worked and undervalued workers in the current financial climate.
Some operational managers will be surprised to at this description not of themselves but of their colleagues in HR. A resent survey of 3,000 people commissioned by Windows Live Hot-mail revealed that HR were the most over worked professionals with almost 75% taking work home. In the current financial climate of restructurings, redeployments and redundancies it shouldn’t surprise us that this creates a massive additional work load for HR. At the same time most managers are dismissive of HR as bureaucrats who slow up recruitment, make it hard to dismiss useless staff, who try and make you take on unsuitable people and who give time and space to disgruntled staff who just want to have a go at management. No one seems over concerned at talk of out sourcing HR. So it is hardly surprising if HR managers and staff feel undervalued.
It is true that HR staff are the conscience of an organisation and have a policing role around areas like recruitment and selection. They point out that you can’t just sack someone because you are fed up with their attitude, that before you go out to advert for a post you must consider staff on the redeployment list, you can’t just change someone’s job description without consultation and negotiation and you can’t just give someone more money because you think they are doing a good job and you don’t want them to leave. HR takes this position because it is HR who usually deals with the consequences when managers take a cavalier attitude to policies and procedures. The result of which can be a grievance or a claim for constructive dismissal and time consuming defence at an industrial tribunal.
My experience is that HR often rescues managers from the consequences of their well intentioned but rash and sometimes insensitive actions. But perhaps the stereotypes of HR staff as bureaucrats policing recruitment and selection policies or managers as ‘bulls in a china shop’ comes about due to a lack of clarity about where responsibility lies and how to get the best out of HR expertise.
Managers make the decisions. They are accountable for their actions, they do not need HR’s permission so should not be asking can I do this? Instead they should ask how can I achieve this. This means asking for advice at the outset not when things have started to go wrong and the individual has submitted a formal complaint or their Trade Union rep has intervened.
Managers who are dismissive of colleagues in support services are probably guilty of confirming the worst stereotypes that HR have of operational managers.
Blair McPherson was until recently a senior manager with a large local authority and is author of People management in a harsh financial climate published by www.russellhouse.co.uk