Everyone hates HR!

Is HR as a profession full of incompetence, or are we labelled that way because we generally deliver bad news?

As HR practitioners, Reabur (www.reabur.com), have been pondering this very question. Whether it is prospective clients, friends or work colleagues, everyone seems to have had an experience of bad HR.

There will always be incompetence in any profession, but HR is probably one of the worst places that this can exist, yet business owners and managers appear to live with sub standard performance in that area, possibly because they have no idea how to performance manage the performance manager.

In general terms, only when a Company has experienced good HR do they ‘buy-in’ to the function and the value it can add to an organisation, all too often it is deemed as a necessary evil once a Company reaches a certain size. The stereotypes of employee biased tea and sympathy, or the procedure creating police continue to haunt every HR professional. But neither describes the HR that businesses need or want, and no matter how many times you change the job titles or department name if the behaviours don’t change the stereotypes will keep coming back!

So what does make a good HR professional? We spoke to a number of our clients who want the following attributes from their HR provider or internal HR department:
• Pragmatic- HR best practice is not always best practice for every organisation.
• Commercially aware- the ability to understand the business at all levels, not just the areas that have a direct impact on HR.
• Willing to give an opinion- nothing frustrates a manager more, than someone who is advising them on a process but refuses to have an opinion on what they should do.
• Flexible- procedures and processes have their place, and of course there are ‘mandatory’ elements, but we are all humans not machines and we should never forget that.
• Risk aware not averse- everyone takes risks, they are necessary and often beneficial, the key is to be aware of what risk is being taken not avoid it altogether.
• Trusted- everyone has to trust HR from the Managing Director to the Cleaner, every relationship is valuable.

Unfortunately even if you have all of this, there are still no guarantees that HR will be seen as a star performer by all! The organisation has to allow HR to perform, if they are only ever ‘wheeled out’ to announce redundancies, and manage disciplinary investigations, human nature will label them as the bearers of bad news and search for every reason to hate them, including accusing them of being very bad at their job.

At Reabur we pride ourselves in being a refreshingly different HR Support service with professionalism and personality; we get to know each and every client to ensure that when we advise them it’s with their organisation in mind, not a text book or procedure.