HR's Crucial Role in Company Growth: Should More HR Pros Reach Top Positions?

The Role of HR in Company Growth

In the growth of the company, HR plays the most crucial and important role. However, very few HR professionals are considered for top positions in the company. Is this justified?

Your observation is true. HR plays the most important part in managing talent. However, the business head needs to be responsible for growth in revenue, overarching every other area for delivery. The HR leader who works to ensure revenue growth and sustainability with operational excellence surely succeeds as a CEO.

Thank you.

Regards

You are right, of course. I suggest you go a little deeper and try to understand the reasons why we, as HR, rarely find a place in the mainstream or on the front benches, as it were!

Over the years, I have realized that unless we prove our worth, people only consider us a necessary appendage. We need to introspect and improve. Nothing will come automatically to us. What are our contributions beyond excellent words and a pretense of being mature and important? Have we been able to make the "powers that be" sit up and look at us as useful and contributing members of the team?

Observations on HR's Role

In my opinion, formed over a long span of time, I have made some observations during my experience. I will share some of these:

• Our orientations are "functional."

• Our perspectives are also "functional" first, then "organizational," and finally "professional," and we invariably fumble in deciding the stance from issue to issue!

• We are unwilling to learn what is not taught! Our interfunctional interface is pathetic. We may cultivate friends across functions but often fail in internalizing the realities of other functions.

Aside from that, we also tend to be too engrossed in issues of "status consciousness" and tend to consider most matters from a "win-lose" perspective.

We do not prove our utility or value for issues of an organizational nature. No one teaches, and we don't learn!

Your observation is TRUE, and in my book, WE are primarily responsible for this state of affairs.

Lastly, I urge all not to treat this post as a sweeping generalization as I have neither the knowledge nor the authority to do so!

There are honorable exceptions to this observation that I know of, and surely you do too!

The moral of the story is even if your observation is true (and it certainly is!), we need to introspect, reconfigure ourselves as professionals, and add value to the organization intelligently and without even seeming to be obstacles in any form! The question is, can we do it?

Regards,
Samvedan

December 18, 2012

While there are points where you hit the "bull's eye"—so to say, there are some aspects that really can't be attributed to HR professionals alone. General human attributes like status consciousness, the tendency to view issues from a win-lose perspective, and unwillingness to learn what is not taught cut across functions—not just HR.

However, what you mentioned regarding orientations and perspectives being "functional" is very true—one of the main reasons for HR professionals not heading companies. To put it another way, in general, HR persons don't look at the 'larger/big picture' (the "organizational" perspective that you mentioned) in their decisions. This is where many HR persons get hit—they leave it to the Directors/MD to handle this part of the decision-making process.

Having said this, frankly, I am not sure if even if an HR person wants to do so, most of them would be able to do it. One reason would be the lack of technical/professional qualifications (meaning the basic degrees, NOT the MBA, which comes later)—which hinders the understanding of the consequences of any decision from the organizational perspective.

Another reason would be the typical hesitation of many (if not most/all) HR persons to 'dirty their hands'—so to say. A lot of employees in a company tend to respect only those who don't hesitate to get their hands dirty, IF needed—even if it's in such actions that an HR person also learns the nuances of the work in that company. Other functions invariably have to get their hands dirty as a part of their job—if they don't, they are as good as OUT.

In the Indian context, there's only ONE person whom I saw, to the extent I can recollect, reaching the Top of a large organization from the HR function (he is now a Director in Reliance Energy, after a stint as CMD of NTPC)—and his was a unique qualification combination in the 1980s—BTech+MBA(HR), when most BTechs those days chose Marketing, Production, and such specializations in MBA.

This is my say on this subject—not sure how many agree with it.

Regards,
TS

There is nothing in your response for anyone to disagree with! Some of the shortcomings I referred to are really universal and not peculiar to HR alone. But in most organizations, particularly in the manufacturing sector, HR is considered to be the management, next only to the location Head.

Reasons for HR's Prominent Role

This is for two main reasons:

1. All line managers' interactions are limited primarily to their line, whereas by the very nature of the function's requirement, HR gets to interact across the organization.

2. Being involved with "rules & regulations," "Notices," "Disciplinary Actions," "Unions," "Compliance," etc., HR's visibility is far greater than the line management.

To add to this, many HRs tend to mystify their functional knowledge using legal terms like case laws, courts, etc., as a very easy method to rise in the esteem of "poor mortals" and to gain power!

Power mongering, grabbing the limelight, wielding authority even when not needed are failures of the line management also.

Challenges for HR Professionals

But... being close to the "economics" of the firm, be it involvement with manufacturing, quality, marketing, and to an extent "finance," these chaps hog all the limelight leaving poor HR to find ways to enhance self-importance. If they start to succeed, they face intense competition. They generally lose out because to move from being a functionary to becoming a generalist is not only difficult, it also requires you to "upgrade" yourself by developing competencies in other functional areas. How many HRs really make a conscious effort in this area?

We are responsible for our situation either because we are not proactive in doing what it takes to move closer to being a generalist or simply wait for the organization to do something for us, or for that matter, HRs find peace and harmony in higher emoluments, fancy designations, greater visibility and allow themselves to decay!

I think all HRs need to seriously THINK about this state of affairs! But thanks again for responding. It prompted me to add a few more points! Cheers!

Regards,
samvedan

December 18, 2012