Hello,
The following are not my personal views, but could be the views in general.
1. If you have a female HR person, then the company may have to grant her maternity leave at some point of time. I do not know whether her absence during leave is an advantage or disadvantage to the company. It depends on what contributions or messes the HR person is making.
2.If you have more female employees, then it is better to have a female HR person. This is the general belief. But, beware that there is a possibility you get an inquisitive female for that HR position, who will always be breathing on the neck of every female employee (to show empathy with females) causing employees' unrest and may eventually prove that a male in that place could have created less problems to the company.
3. If you have more male employees than female ones, then you can have either a male or female HR. Male employees are not supposed to have problems so personal in nature that they need to share with the HR person. They generally do not need empathy from a female HR person. The female employees, who are lesser in number in that organization, compared to males, also do not need so much of empathy from HR. Their mutual empathy may be sufficient. So, the HR person could be male or female in this case. Or, HR dept. can have a mixture of male and female staff to be empathetic with their own genders and keep representing on all the gender related problems and issues to the management.
4.If you have substantial number of militant or arrogant or rudely behaving male employees as part of your workforce, then it is better to have a female HR person. It is my observation that mostly females somehow have the knack of putting such negative employees in their place by teaching them appropriate lessons in their lives. (Males take them on their horns and get into problem.) Or, sometimes sympathy works better than empathy. It is better to have what works better for your company. Sometimes the rude employees due to modesty do not want to show their rudeness to the female HR persons. If you do not give them any other place - other than HR - for being rude, then they will permanently loose the opportunity for being rude. They all will probably become so soft eventually. Or, if they behave rudely, then they will attract the hatred from all quarters for being rude with a female. All females in the organization may push the management for immediate action on that employee and therefore he will be chucked out easily. (If you have arrogant female employees as large part, then also it is better to have female HR as they can only properly deal with these matters as they know each other.)
5. If your company is full of male chauvinists as heads of other departments, then it is better to have only females in HR. The other department managers may be initially happy to feel that HR is totally female and they can therefore expect HR to be in subordinate position. Over a period of time their happiness will disappear, because it is difficult to judge along the way who is dominating whom. So, the chauvinism will also subsequently disappear.This way you can create a balance in the organization between genders.
6. I do not find any situation wherein only a male will suit a HR job.
With regards for both the genders,
Govardhan