Why We Hate HR.doc

Why We Hate HR By Keith H. Hammonds Well, heres a rockin party: a gathering of several hundred midlevel human-resources executives in Las Vegas. (Yo, Wayne Newton! Hows the 401(k)?) They are here, ensconced for two days at faux-glam Caesars Palace, to confer on strategic HR leadership, a conceit that sounds, to the lay observer, at once frightening and self-contradictory. If not plain laughable. 嗯，这里是一个摇滚派对：数百中层人力资源管理人员聚集在拉斯维加斯。 （哟，韦恩牛顿！怎么样的401（k）？）他们都在这里，坐在了两个人造魅力凯撒宫天，赋予“战略人力资源领导”，一个自负的声音，向躺在一次观测，可怕的和自相矛盾的。如果没有平原可笑。Because lets face it: After close to 20 years of hopeful rhetoric about becoming strategic partners with a seat at the table where the business decisions that matter are made, most human-resources professionals arent nearly there. They have no seat, and the table is locked inside a conference room to which they have no key. HR people are, for most practical purposes, neither strategic nor leaders. 因为我们必须面对现实：经过近20年左右成为“战略合作伙伴，在该表”，其中的业务事项作出的决定是，大部分人力资源专业人士几乎没有出现“席位”充满希望的言辞年。他们没有席位，该表是在一个会议室上锁，他们没有钥匙。人力资源的人是最实际的目的，既不战略也不领导人。I dont care for Las Vegas. And if its not clear already, I dont like HR, either, which is why Im here. The human-resources trade long ago proved itself, at best, a necessary evil - and at worst, a dark bureaucratic force that blindly enforces nonsensical rules, resists creativity, and impedes constructive change. HR is the corporate function with the greatest potential - the key driver, in theory, of business performance - and also the one that most consistently underdelivers. And I am here to find out why. 我不喜欢拉斯维加斯。如果它不是清楚了，我不喜欢人力资源，或者说，这就是为什么我在这里。在人力资源贸易早已证明了自己，充其量是一个必要的罪恶 - 并且最坏的打算，一个黑暗的官僚力量，盲目地执行无意义的规则，抗拒创造性，阻碍建设性的变革。人力资源是企业最大的功能与潜力 - 的主要驱动力，在理论上，经营业绩 - 也是一个最一贯underdelivers。而我在这里找到了原因。.Why are annual performance appraisals so time-consuming - and so routinely useless? Why is HR so often a henchman for the chief financial officer, finding ever-more ingenious ways to cut benefits and hack at payroll? Why do its communications - when we can understand them at all - so often flout reality? Why are so many people processes duplicative and wasteful, creating a forest of paperwork for every minor transaction? And why does HR insist on sameness as a proxy for equity? 为什么年度考绩等耗时 - 这样经常是无用的？为什么人力资源经常为首席财务官亲信，寻找越来越多的巧妙方法，削减福利和哈克在工资？为什么它的通讯 - 当我们可以理解他们 - 所以常常无视现实？为什么这么多人过程重复和浪费，从而为每一个轻微的交易手续森林？为什么人力资源和坚持雷同，作为股权代理？Its no wonder that we hate HR. In a 2005 survey by consultancy Hay Group, just 40% of employees commended their companies for retaining high-quality workers. Just 41% agreed that performance evaluations were fair. Only 58% rated their job training as favorable. Most said they had few opportunities for advancement - and that they didnt know, in any case, what was required to move up. Most telling, only about half of workers below the manager level believed their companies took a genuine interest in their well-being. 这也难怪，我们恨的人力资源。在一项由顾问公司Hay集团2005年的调查，只有40的员工赞扬保留高素质的员工他们的公司。只是41的人同意，业绩评价是公正的。只有58额定其作为良好的在职培训。大多数人说，他们很少有机会晋升 - 而且，他们不知道，在任何情况下，所需要的走高。最有说服力的，相信只有经理级以下的工人一半的公司拿到了他们的幸福真正的兴趣。None of this is explained immediately in Vegas. These HR folks, from employers across the nation, are neither evil courtiers nor thoughtless automatons. They are mostly smart, engaging people who seem genuinely interested in doing their jobs better. They speak convincingly about employee development and cultural transformation. And, over drinks, they spin some pretty funny yarns of employee weirdness. (Like the one about the guy who threatened to sue his wifes company for enabling her affair with a coworker. Then there was the mentally disabled worker and the hooker - well, no, never mind. . . .) 这一切都不是在拉斯维加斯立即解释。这些人才来自全国各地的乡亲雇主，既不是邪恶的大臣们也没有盲目的机器人。他们大多是聪明的，搞的人似乎谁真正在做自己的工作更感兴趣。他们说令人信服地对员工的发展和文化变革。而且，在饮料，纺线的员工一些非常古怪滑稽纱线。 （像对那个谁扬言要控告“扶持”和同事她的事，他妻子的公司之一。然后是精神残疾工人和妓女 - 哦，不，没关系。）But then the facade cracks. It happens at an afternoon presentation called From Technicians to Consultants: How to Transform Your HR Staff into Strategic Business Partners. The speaker, Julie Muckler, is senior vice president of human resources at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. She is an enthusiastic woman with a broad smile and 20 years of experience at companies such as Johnson & Johnson and General Tire. She has degrees in consumer economics and human resources and organizational development. 但随后的门面裂缝。它发生在所谓的技术人员“的顾问一下午的演讲：如何改造您的人力资源为战略业务伙伴的工作人员。”该发言人朱莉马克勒，是人力资源的高级副总裁，富国银行住房抵押贷款的总统。她是一个具有广阔的微笑，20时，如强生公司和通用轮胎公司多年的经验热情的女人。她在消费经济学和人力资源和组织发展程度。And I have no idea what shes talking about. There is mention of internal action learning and being more planful in my approach. PowerPoint slides outline Wells Fargo Home Mortgages initiatives in performance management, organization design, and horizontal-solutions teams. Muckler describes leveraging internal resources and involving external resources - and she leaves her audience dazed. That evening, even the human-resources pros confide they didnt understand much of it, either. 而且我不知道她到底在说什么。有“国内提到行动学习”和“我的方法中更planful”。 PowerPoint幻灯片大纲富国银行住房抵押贷款的倡议，绩效管理，组织设计，和水平的解决方案团队。马克勒介绍了利用内部资源和外部资源参与 - 和她离开她的观众感到茫然。那天晚上，即使是人力资源专业人士倾诉他们不明白它的很多，要么。This, friends, is the trouble with HR. In a knowledge economy, companies that have the best talent win. We all know that. Human resources execs should be making the most of our, well, human resources - finding the best hires, nurturing the stars, fostering a productive work environment - just as IT runs the computers and finance minds the capital. HR should be joined to business strategy at the hip. 这，朋友，是与人力资源的麻烦。在知识经济时代，公司拥有最优秀的人才会赢。我们都知道这一点。人力资源高管应该是我们最，同时，人力资源 - 寻找最佳的聘用，培养明星，促进生产性的工作环境 - 正如它运行的计算机和金融资本的头脑。人力资源应该加入到业务战略在臀部。.Instead, most HR organizations have ghettoized themselves literally to the brink of obsolescence. They are competent at the administrivia of pay, benefits, and retirement, but companies increasingly are farming those functions out to contractors who can handle such routine tasks at lower expense. Whats left is the more important strategic role of raising the reputational and intellectual capital of the company - but HR is, it turns out, uniquely unsuited for that. 相反，大多数HR组织退却，自己简直到报废的边缘。他们有能力在薪酬，福利的administrivia，退休，但越来越多的公司正在耕种的职能进行承建商谁可以以较低的费用处理等日常工作。什么是左是更重要的提高公司的声誉和智力资本的战略作用 - 但人力资源是，事实证明，该独特的不适应。Heres why. 1. HR people arent the sharpest tacks in the box. Well be blunt: If you are an ambitious young thing newly graduated from a top college or B-school with your eye on a rewarding career in business, your first instinct is not to join the human-resources dance. (At the University of Michigans Ross School of Business, which arguably boasts the nations top faculty for organizational issues, just 1.2% of 2004 grads did so.) Says a management professor at one leading school: The best and the brightest dont go into HR. 1。人力资源的人是不是在盒子里的尖锐鞋钉。我们将直言不讳：如果你是一个雄心勃勃的年轻人从一个新的东西顶尖大学，或与您在业务上的眼睛乙有价值的职业学校毕业，你的第一反应是不参加人力资源舞蹈。 （在密歇根大学的罗斯商学院，这可以说是拥有国内最顶尖的教师对组织的问题，只有1.2 2004年这样做梯度大学。）说在一个龙头学校的管理学教授：“最好的和最聪明的不把人力资源去。“Who does? Intelligent people, sometimes - but not businesspeople. HR doesnt tend to hire a lot of independent thinkers or people who stand up as moral compasses, says Garold L. Markle, a longtime human-resources executive at Exxon and Shell Offshore who now runs his own consultancy. Some are exiles from the corporate mainstream: Theyve fared poorly in meatier roles - but not poorly enough to be fired. For them, and for their employers, HR represents a relatively low-risk parking spot. 谁做？聪明的人，有时 - 但不是商人。 “人力资源并不倾向于聘请独立的思想家或人谁站了很多的道德指南针，说：”Garold属马克尔，长期担任人力资源，埃克森和壳牌海洋行政谁现在经营自己的顾问。有些是从公司的主流流亡者：他们已经表现不佳的更耐人寻味的角色 - 但不是不好，足以被解雇。对于他们，和他们的雇主，人力资源是一个相对低风险的停车位。Others enter the field by choice and with the best of intentions, but for the wrong reasons. They like working with people, and they want to be helpful - noble motives that thoroughly tick off some HR thinkers. When people have come to me and said, I want to work with people, I say, Good, go be a social worker, says Arnold Kanarick, who has headed human resources at the Limited and, until recently, at Bear Stearns. HR isnt about being a do-gooder. Its about how do you get the best and brightest people and raise the value of the firm. 其他进入这一领域，并选择最好的愿望，但由于错误的原因。他们喜欢与人合作，他们希望有帮助 - 高尚的动机，彻底剔了一些人力资源的思想家。 “当人们开始对我说，我想与人们工作，我说：好，去当社工，”阿诺德Kanarick说，谁拥有领导在有限的人力资源，直到最近，在贝尔斯登。 “人力资源是不是作为一个好人的。这是关于你如何获得最好的和最聪明的人，提高了公司的价值。”The really scary news is that the gulf between capabilities and job requirements appears to be widening. As business and legal demands on the function intensify, staffers educational qualifications havent kept pace. In fact, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), a considerably smaller proportion of HR professionals today have some education beyond a bachelors degree than in 1990. 真正可怕的消息是，能力和工作要求之间的鸿沟似乎越来越大。由于在商业和法律的功能需求加大，员工的教育资格都没有跟上。事实上，根据由人力资源管理（人力资源管理学会），专业的人力资源相当小的比例目前社会调查，有超过1学士比1990年学历教育。And heres one more slice of telling SHRM data: When HR professionals were asked about the worth of various academic courses toward a successful career in HR, 83% said that classes in interpersonal communications skills had extremely high value. Employment law and business ethics followed, at 71% and 66%, respectively. Where was change management? At 35%. Strategic management? 32%. Finance? Um, that was just 2%.这里的一多告诉人力资源管理学会的数据：当人力资源专业人员对各种学术课程走向“成功的职业生涯中的人力资源价值问道：”83片说，在人际沟通技巧班已经“非常高的价值。”就业的法律和商业道德，其次为71和66，分别。变更管理是在哪里？ 35。战略管理？ 32。财务？嗯，这是只有2。The truth? Most human-resources managers arent particularly interested in, or equipped for, doing business. And in a business, thats sort of a problem. As guardians of a companys talent, HR has to understand how people serve corporate objectives. Instead, business acumen is the single biggest factor that HR professionals in the U.S. lack today, says Anthony J. Rucci, executive vice president at Cardinal Health Inc., a big health-care supply distributor. 真相？大部分人力资源经理并不特别感兴趣，或装备，做生意。而在一个企业，这是一个问题的排序。作为一个公司的人才监护人，人力资源已成为人们如何理解企业的目标。相反，“商业触觉是单一最大因素，在美国，缺乏人力资源专业人士今天说，”安东尼Rucci，在基本健康公司是一家大型医疗保健供应商执行副总裁。Rucci is consistently mentioned by academics, consultants, and other HR leaders as an executive who actually does know business. At Baxter International, he ran both HR and corporate strategy. Before that, at Sears, he led a study of results at 800 stores over five years to assess the connection between employee commitment, customer loyalty, and profitability. Rucci是一贯提到学者，顾问，并作为行政机关究竟是谁不知道企业的其他人力资源领导人。在巴克斯特国际，他都跑的人力资源和企业战略。在此之前，在西尔斯，他率领的800存储了超过5年的研究结果，以评估员工承诺之间的连接，客户忠诚度和盈利能力。.As far as Rucci is concerned, there are three questions that any decent HR person in the world should be able to answer. First, who is your companys core customer? Have you talked to one lately? Do you know what challenges they face? Second, who is the competition? What do they do well and not well? And most important, who are we? What is a realistic assessment of what we do well and not so well vis a vis the customer and the competition? Does your HR pro know the answers? 2. HR pursues efficiency in lieu of value. Why? Because its easier - and easier to measure. Dave Ulrich, a professor at the University of Michigan, recalls meeting with the chairman and top HR people from a big bank. The training person said that 80% of employees have done at least 40 hours in classes. The chairman said, Congratulations. I said, Youre talking about the activities youre doing. The question is, What are you delivering? That sort of stuff drives Ulrich nuts. Over 20 years, he has become the HR trades best-known guru (see The Once and Future Consultant, page 48) and a leading proponent of the push to take on more-strategic roles within corporations. But human-resources managers, he acknowledges, typically undermine that effort by investing more importance in activities than in outcomes. Youre only effective if you add value, Ulrich says. That means youre not measured by what you do but by what you deliver. By that, he refers not just to the value delivered to employees and line managers, but the benefits that accrue to investors and customers, as well. So heres a true story: A talented young marketing exec accepts a job offer with Time Warner out of business school. She interviews for openings in several departments - then is told by HR that only one is interested in her. In fact, she learns later, they all had been. She had been railroaded into the job, under the supervision of a widely reviled manager, because no one inside the company would take it. You make the call: Did HR do its job? On the one hand, it filled the empty slot. It did what was organizationally expedient, says the woman now. Getting someone who wouldnt kick and scream about this role probably made sense to them. But I just felt angry. She left Time Warner after just a year. (A Time Warner spokesperson declined to comment on the incident.) Part of the problem is that Time Warners metrics likely will never catch the real cost of its HR departments action. Human resources can readily provide the number of people it hired, the percentage of performance evaluations completed, and the extent to which employees are satisfied or not with their benefits. But only rarely does it link any of those metrics to business performance. John W. Boudreau, a professor at the University of Southern Californias Center for Effective Organizations, likens the failing to shortcomings of the finance function before DuPont figured out how to calculate return on investment in 1912. In HR, he says, we dont have anywhere near that kind of logical sophistication in the way of people or talent. So the decisions that get made about that resource are far less sophisticated, reliable, and consistent. Cardinal Healths Rucci is trying to fix that. Cardinal regularly asks its employees 12 questions designed to measure engagement. Among them: Do they understand the companys strategy? Do they see the connection between that and their jobs? Are they proud to tell people where they work? Rucci correlates the results to those of a survey of 2,000 customers, as well as monthly sales data and brand-awareness scores. So I dont know if our HR processes are having an impact per se, Rucci says. But I know absolutely that employee-engagement scores have an impact on our business, accounting for between 1% and 10% of earnings, depending on the business and the employees role. Cardinal may not anytime soon get invited by the Conference Board to explain our world-class best practices in any area of HR - and I couldnt care less. The real question is, Is the business effective and successful? 3. HR isnt working for you. Want to know why you go through that asinine performance appraisal every year, really? Markle, who admits to having administered countless numbers of them over the years, is pleased to confirm your suspicions. Companies, he says are doing it to protect themselves against their own employees, he says. They put a piece of paper between you and employees, so if you ever have a confrontation, you can go to the file and say, Here, Ive documented this problem. Theres a good reason for this defensive stance, of course. In the last two generations, government has created an immense thicket of labor regulations. Equal Employment Opportunity; Fair Labor Standards; Occupational Safety and Health; Family and Medical Leave; and the ever-popular ERISA. These are complex, serious issues requiring technical expertise, and HR has to apply reasonable caution. But its easy to get sucked down into that, says Mark Royal, a senior consultant with Hay Group. Theres a tension created by HRs role as protector of corporate assets - making sure it doesnt run afoul of the rules. That puts you in the position of saying no a lot, of playing the bad cop. You have to step out of that, see the broad possibilities, and take a more open-minded approach. You need to understand where the exceptions to broad policies can be made. Typically, HR people cant, or wont. Instead, they pursue standardization and uniformity in the face of a workforce that is heterogeneous and complex. A manager at a large capital leasing company complains that corporate HR is trying to eliminate most vice-president titles there - even though veeps are a dime a dozen in the finance industry. Why? Because in the companys commercial business, vice president is a rank reserved for the top officers. In its drive for bureaucratic fairness, HR is actually threatening the reputation, and so the effectiveness, of the companys finance professionals. The urge for one-size-fits-all, says one professor who studies the field, is partly about compliance, but mostly because its just easier. Bureaucrats everywhere abhor exceptions - not just because they open up the company to charges of bias but because they require more than rote solutions. Theyre time-consuming and expensive to manage. Make one exception, HR fears, and the floodgates will open. Theres a contradiction here, of course: Making exceptions should be exactly what human resources does, all the time - not because its nice for employees, but because it drives the business. Employers keep their best people by acknowledging and rewarding their distinctive performance, not by treating them the same as everyone else. If Im running a business, I can tell you whos really helping to drive the business forward, says Dennis Ackley, an employee communication consultant. HR should have the same view. We should send the message that we value our high-performing employees and were focused on rewarding and retaining them. Instead, human-resources departments benchmark salaries, function by function and job by job, against industry standards, keepin