Administrivia, the Bane of Human Resource Management

Recently I was reading a copy of Fast Company Magazine, one of my favorite sources for recent information about business and organizational life, when I ran across an article I found totally intriguing. The title of the article was, “Why We Hate HR.” The article was written by Keith Hammonds, the deputy editor of Fast Company Magazine, and can be found in issue 97 (August 2005) at page 40. I found this article stimulating enough that it drove me to provide my reaction in written form.

At the outset of this article, the author announces that he does not like HR, and goes on to explain why:

The Human-Resources trade long ago proved itself, at best, a necessary evil – and at worst, a dark bureaucratic force that blindly enforces nonsensical rules, resists creativity, and impedes constructive change. HR is the corporate function with the greatest potential – the key driver, in theory, in business performance – and also, the one that most consistently under-delivers.

One of my favorite sports talk shows has a segment in which the listener can call in and give a “rant.” This article, which is about eight pages long, is a great rant. Yet, based on my HR experience, the quality of the rant is in part a reflection of the accuracy of the diagnosis.

HR will only achieve its promise, from the point of view of the article, if it begins to focus on being strategic and providing organizational leadership. HR needs to be a major player in designing and implementing strategies for organizational effectiveness, and it must provide leadership towards promoting and ensuring high levels of employee performance. In the author’s view, those two functions are given lip service but are simply not a part of the main HR menu in most organizations.

My intention is to use the e-zines that will follow in the next few months for the purpose of setting forth some thoughts on how to change the path of HR towards achieving its potential. In this e-zine I want to begin this project by noting the difference between the tasks that are most frequently assigned to the HR department and how they relate to the larger goal of providing strategy and leadership. To put it bluntly, the picture is not very bright.

Many of the tasks assigned to HR can at best be called administrivia. Tasks such as pay, benefits, and retirement can all be put into this classification. Obviously, each of those areas is extremely important. Making sure that employees are promptly and correctly paid and dealing with their medical insurance issues, to focus on a couple, are all time-consuming and vital activities but, at a basic level, entirely irrelevant to the success of the organization. As to evidence for my conclusion that these activities are not important to the success of the organization, I will simply point to the fact that they are increasingly being sub-contracted to an outside firms. Surprise! In many cases outside firms can perform HR tasks more efficiently and cost effectively then the HR Department. Clearly, if your prime activities involve fulfilling functions that can be easily farmed out and are not core to the success of the organization, it is not surprising to see why the individuals engaged in these activities will not be viewed by the organization as strategic and leaders. Moreover, I believe it is reasonable to assume that it will be difficult for HR to focus on administrivia, and still retain high levels of competency related to strategy and leadership. There is a fundamental belief that good peace-time generals do not make good war-time generals. The demands on the position of general are significantly different from peace-time to war-time.

Question: what “rules” in your HR Department? Administrivia? Those functions have to be done, but they do not have to rule.

Hopefully, the point that I am trying to make is now clear, and I have set the table for the next e-zine which will begin to look at the process of revitalizing the HR function.

Quote of the Month:

To unleash the extraordinary efforts of your workforce, you must first believe this to be possible. Then, you must make sure that your people have the resources, support, and freedom to meet the challenges – or seize the opportunities – when they present themselves. – Libby Sartain, Chief People Officer, Yahoo! Inc.