Dear HR, is it time for Ctrl-Alt-Del?

The Human Resource (HR) is at the centre of love and attention like never before. Last year, renowned management guru Ram Charan suggested it is time to split HR and the department per se must go. In the current edition of Harvard Business Review, Peter Cappelli, Director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources wrote why we love to hate the HR and what HR can do about it? And only last week, Abhijit Bhaduri, Chief Learning Officer at Wipro tweeted that entrepreneurs set up teams without HR.
Have you heard anyone ask the same questions about Finance or Legal? Why the special attention towards HR? One possible explanation is that 'anyone can do HR' and it takes little skills. Unfortunately, the only people who lost sleep over Abhijit's tweet were those who work in HR. So instead of burying my head in the sand and hoping this will all go away, here is my take on what HR must do.

Think like work in progress versus finished goods: For most people, being experimental, taking risks, re-imagining work, focusing on innovation etc. happen everywhere but in HR. And we have ourselves to blame for it. I believe HR at most places plays "to not lose" and the focus is to minimise the fallout from the event. Controls, expectations, rules are manifestations of this mindset. Contrast this to VUCA world where business and competition have a new meaning: the average lifespan of a firm on S&P 500 shrank from 61 years in 1958 to 18 years in 2011. Or, the probability that market share leader is also the profitability leader declined from 34 per cent in 1950 to just 7 per cent in 2007. So dear HR, instead of waiting to get it right, and having all the ducks lined up, take the lead and play to win. Nearly all companies have probationary period for people, but what about policies? There is no reason that the next business idea cannot come from those in HR. For example, at Sapient, for one of the large consumer goods company, some of the ideas around innovating business came from a cross functional team that included folks from HR.

And finally, purge the 'not invented here' mindset; rather, build on work of others.

Design best systems, not best practice: Best practices are useful reference points and are necessary but not sufficient conditions for advancement. There are several HR awards that celebrate best practice with not enough attention to the underlying system. Take the case of doing away with performance rankings, a hot topic and practice currently gaining momentum. Ask your peers at companies who have done away with it and they can share slide after slide on why that is the right thing to do. One can easily fall into the trap of building a business case for implementation without recognizing the role organization culture will play in enabling that. For example, if your culture promotes top-down sharing of information and knowledge, this change is likely to be resisted including those by supervisors. In reality, best practices don't work, best systems do.

Do show, not just tell: Thou shalt not…. go ahead, complete sentence this with any of the archaic rules that govern your workplace. Regrettably, HR at many places is viewed as the function that espouses(only) how others must act and behave with little consequence to self. "Spend time connecting with people, perform regular talent reviews, hire people on cultural fit and not on skills etc."Don't get me wrong, these are great statements(of intent) and have their place under the sun, but it is time the function moved from being viewed as a backseat driver to actually driving the vehicle. Understanding the business is not the same as running it and the pressure that comes with the job. Spend a day as an inside sales associate or as someone who is in-between projects (aka on bench) and life will have a new meaning. The age old debate of HR as Strategic Business partner will die the day HR starts playing the role of business. So dear HR, don't just tell, show. Oh, and my favorite"Thou shalt not make any more rules until you have purged as many".

In today's world, talent and the ideas they bring, is the biggest source of competitive advantage. HR's role in attracting, developing and growing that talent is undeniable. As HR, it is up to us to redefine the remit of the role and be the change before someone else changes us.

(The author is VP, Hiring and Staffing, SapientNitro India)