HR for HR’s sake

Through my career I’ve worked in Centres of Excellence and as a Business Partner; often combining the two, which was the best experience for both HR and the business. One of my biggest frustrations has been HR acting without business input. This doesn’t mean that HR does what the business says, it means that HR works with the business to deliver great people outcomes.

“Why are we doing this” I once asked of my Workday Team. The response, “it’s functionality in workday that we’re not using”. That functionality was “resign on-line”; the proposed implementation would allow an employee to commence their resignation process on-line through workday. Sounds great and reduced admin for HR, but…. The process neglected to inform the line manager!

For me, this is a classic example of “HR for HR’s sake” doing what HR want to do rather than what the business needs

Let’s not practice HR for HR’s sake, and all functions in HR should practice the importance of business partnership.