HR : Assumptions, Reality and More

Scene 1
Location: Any regular office
The moment employees hear about the HR, the first thought that comes to their mind
“Ah! What a cushy job to be in” “they hardly have any work”

Scene 2
Location: Anywhere practically
Discussions will be like
A: Hey, what do you work as?
B: HR of a company
A: Nice, I have a couple of my acquaintances, can you please help in case of job openings, if any?

Scene 3
Location: Any B-School
Rest of the school: Do you even need to study HR to become one? Any one of us can be HR. Also, do HR guys even work?
HR Students: facepalm! Seething with anger, yet choosing not to react

So, why am I writing all of this? Well, each of these situations talks about the general perception of HR as a field and people who work as Human Resource Professionals. Typically, employees assume that HR’s don’t have any significant work to do and aren’t accountable. I won’t say the employees are entirely wrong because there are a few HR’s who belong to the category mentioned. However, to generalize it to the entire HR Fraternity is a bit overboard.

In big companies,  there are specific teams to handle the entire employee life cycle beginning from talent acquisition until their exit. Sometimes, in this melee, most of them from a particular team has practically nothing to do.

In contrast, smaller companies with a very limited workforce have this single person who has to take care of the entire gamut of HR-related activities and it ain’t easy. In such situations, the role played by HR assumes supreme importance, because anything even remotely related to employees is to be handled by this person in this role.

Another interesting thing to note is, HR typically deals with the most difficult part of any company and i.e. Employees. Myriad people, variety of attitudes, a different set of expectations and many other such things. HR is the one who’s supposed to bind them together despite their differences and thus ensure company and employees’ well being as a whole. It goes without saying as to how tough this task is, to achieve.

Almost, every other field deals with a certain degree of predictability but for HR, the way people think, act or behave is totally unpredictable. To handle such unpredictability day in and day out is a humongous task.

Unlike the past when  HR was considered an isolated function, now it has assumed strategic importance across industries and companies big and small. For any organization’s overall performance,  a huge role is played by the people working in it and the one considered responsible for these very people is (no guesses for answering!!) – HR!!

Given the current volatile environment, the acronym of HR is no longer “Human Resource” but “Humane Resource” for, empathy is the single most important virtue that definitely has to be there to ensure overall happiness of employees.