Here is the minimum required for HR to begin entering a respected, sought-after position in organizational America from the perspective of an organizational development consultant.

1. Act professionally. Return calls promptly. It’s ironic that, the higher you go, the more professional the treatment. All of us have had it with HR people who believe they are too busy to get back to us.
2. Act securely. Stop creating road block and claiming that “you’ll work with me or not at all.” The best course is to place the appropriate people with budget in direct contact with appropriate resources for their needs. Gate keeping is not power, it’s primitive labor.
3. Get our of HR. A reader once took me to task here for my suggesting that a diversified business experience made for a better HR professional. So let me remedy that by stipulating that spending a career in HR is like watching only foreign movies with s subtitles. You actually begin to believe that no one speaks English other than yourself.
4. Eschew the gurus. There are actually some people who are the darlings of HR who suggest that organizations are a battleground between the enlightened HR people and the evil management structure. They talk about convoluted methodologies and silly approaches. Run for the exits.
5. Start measuring your impact. It’s beyond incompetent to suggest that the work of HR can’t be measured, and it’s pure ignorance to state that it shouldn’t be measured. Why shouldn’t you have to produce ROI statistics and at least anecdotal evidence of improved output?
6. Blow the darn whistle. Your job isn’t to salute and say “Aye, Aye!” but to provide in-house counsel and advice—and sometimes resistance. The general counsel shouldn’t allow illegal contracts to be used, and HR shouldn’t allow unethical, discriminatory, or ineffective employee measures. HR has been asleep at the switch or cowering in the corner during too many instances of racism, sexual harassment, and unethical conduct.
7. Contribute to the improvement of the profession, not merely its growth. The “same old, same old” appears in trade periodicals, conventions, and chapter meetings. HR listens to itself or people who have a vested interest in cozying up, such as training vendors. Transactional HR is being outsourced as you read this. If you’re not part of transformational HR, then you’re just sitting on the track waiting for the train.

HR compensation is low compared to other, more valued corporate functions. It’s too often used as a “dumping ground” for people whom management doesn’t know what else to do with. And it’s a rare cold day in Georgia in August when an HR executive succeeds to the COO or CEO position.
It’s time to stop the sinning and begin the truly transcendent work.


© 2004 Alan Weiss

Alan Weiss, Ph.D.is a regular contributor to HR.com and the author of 23 books appearing in six languages, including the 12-year best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting. Contact him at http://www.summitconsulting.com. You can join his international destination for professionals and entrepreneurs at http://www.AlansForums.com.