Apropos the column "No room for HR" (Worm's Eye View, May 19), neither Robert Townsend (who advised winding up of personnel department as a solution for business prosperity, vide Up The Organisation) and Dilbert (who called human resource, or HR professionals "hatchet men") were among the first, nor will the author be the last to declare HR as the "black sheep" of management. As one who spent 37 years in the field of HR, I found that the image of HR managers varies from one sector to another. In the public sector (I worked with SAIL for 30 years), the job is institutionalised as a valued contributor. This is because most public sector undertakings are large headcount-wise, are in manufacturing, insist on compliance with labour laws and adherence to principles of natural and social justice, and place premium on employee and community well-being without losing sight of contemporary talent management practices.
HR is personalised in the private sector - it is the personality and the personal contribution of the HR people to the profit of the business that decides his/her importance in the set-up, though, companies that are managed by young and highly educated owners now do view HR as a useful adjunct.
Actually, any job is as good, or as bad, as the person who performs it. Not surprisingly, it is the HR professionals themselves who, because of low self-efficacy and reluctance to translate their performance into measurable business gains, have sustained this poor image of their job.
Y G Chouksey Pune
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