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Tag: human resources

  • Opinion: Patrick Crowder on the HR industry

    Patrick Crowder

    The mere mention of human resources can conjure up all sorts of preconceptions and emotions. Often human resource officers are seen as the cops of the workplace – dictating what employees do and say and sacking them at the first sign of unproductivity. “I think it’s certainly true that it’s become much harder to express yourself freely over the past 10 to 15 years and that’s true at universities and it’s also true in the workplace,” the contrarian thinker Toby Young tells us.

    Human resources is also a complex topic, and these more basic misconceptions can be damaging, both to the HR industry and to employees who may be less likely to seek out help from their HR departments when they need it. At its core, HR is about managing people, resolving conflicts, finding solutions, and optimising businesses to improve efficiency. Not all HR departments are perfect, there is no doubt about that, but complex issues require careful analysis.

    That’s why Finito World has spoken to HR professionals across the industry, learned about the rise of new recruiting practices, and profiled 50 HR professionals from top companies to find out the true value of HR and to see how it can be done better.

    The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) is the main professional body for HR professionals in the UK. First founded as the Welfare Workers’ Association in 1913, the CIPD now provides resources, support, accreditation, and data about the people profession. Their data shows that Human Resources makes up 1.6 per cent of the UK workforce – that’s around 472,000 individuals working in the industry. HR in the UK has grown 17 per cent overall between 2009 and 2019, and HR Manager and Director roles have increased by 57 per cent.

    There is a perception that the HR industry is paid extremely highly, and while there are certainly a good number of high-paying roles, pay across the industry is quite variable. According to the CIPD, median pay for an HR employee can range from £18,372 to £115,953 per year. Naturally, this will vary based on role. HR Directors have the highest median pay of £91,301 per year, while less senior roles such as HR Assistant will see around £24,712 per year. As with most professions, with seniority comes higher pay, and the opportunity for advancement within HR is one of the major forces which drives interest in the industry.

    A major part of HR is people analytics, which is the practice of using data about a company’s employees to find business solutions. This is where the idea of the HR department spying on employees comes from, and yes, if not conducted ethically, personal data can be used in ways which violate trust, privacy, and even the law. The CIPD recommends transparency, ensuring that the data system does not discriminate against any group, and ensuring that only necessary data is collected and analysed. This is a contentious area because of the ways that it can be misused. Automating a process which directly affects people’s livelihoods is never ethical, so hiring and firing decisions should never be made until a human has examined the data in question. This isn’t always the case, so the use of employee surveillance has gained a bad reputation. When used correctly, people analytics can be used to help employees, tackle pay gaps, improve training, and find the best ways to improve employee wellbeing.

    Middle management was created out of necessity during the Industrial Revolution, when the scale of businesses increased to a point that business owners could no longer oversee all operations of their companies. Since its creation, middle management has been the subject of controversy. Think back to the character of the “straw boss” in early 20th century labour action. In Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath, straw-bosses are portrayed as company stooges, existing solely to ensure that labourers worked hard for little pay, while not doing much if any work themselves. While this is an extreme example of middle management, these perceptions can still be seen in views of Human Resources departments today.

    Recently, Douglas Murray published an opinion piece in the Telegraph entitled Young people aspiring to be HR managers are a dire sign of a country in trouble. In it, he argues that HR is unimportant, that youth should not “aspire to be bureaucratic middle-meddlers” and criticises HR’s place as one of the highest paid roles in the country. Murray questions the necessity of HR, stating that “The principal qualifications for this overpaid role in my experience are stupidity, lack of curiosity, misguided self-worth and odious self-importance.” If this is true, then many young people must be dead-set on making careers of needless bureaucracy, because the HR industry is growing fast.

    With all of the different ideas circulating about HR, it is essential to understand what the role of HR is, why someone would want such a role, and how the practice is changing with the introduction of new technologies.

  • HR advice from Uber’s Amee Parekh

    Patrick Crowder

    Amee Parekh has had an extremely successful career since she graduated from the University of Mumbai in 2005. She worked at IBM in software engineering roles for three years before attending Cornell, making the switch to HR, and going on to work for Expedia. She is now Head of HR for Uber Freight and Finance. We talked with her to find out her views on the best ways to succeed within the industry, the value of quality HR, and gender equality in the workplace.

    “I grew up in India where I did my engineering work, and in India HR is actually an immensely hot function. It’s almost like how software engineering is in the US or how tech is in other countries,” Parekh says, “HR is very precious because a lot of companies over there are very high growth, so they really need HR to supercharge their hiring, train people in new skills, and manage a staff of thousands.”

    Parekh was aware of how many opportunities in HR were out there, but she truly became interested in the field while working as a software engineer.

    “On one of my first projects I happened to be working with the HR team building an internal portal, and through that I got a close-up look at the amazing job they were doing with hiring and how they were truly driving an impact on the business. That’s what motivated me to seriously consider this as a career.”

    Parekh then applied to a wide range of Master’s programmes in the US at top universities, and got accepted to every single one. She chose Cornell University because of their top-ranked HR programme. Much has been written about the best ways to get into top schools – unique experiences, volunteering, sports, etc. – but Parekh took the traditional but difficult approach of pure academic excellence.

    “I know universities want all of these extracurricular activities, but I think universities in the US also value academics a lot, so my undergrad was very useful,” she recalls, “My scores were very strong all throughout school. I was very much a geeky or nerdy student growing up, and even in high school I was taking advanced physics and maths.”

    But what about outside of education? After graduating from Cornell, she says that finding employment opportunities was not difficult. For many, the guiding hand from study to work may take the form of a mentor who can advise on career opportunities and help people find their way into the corporate world. For Parekh, her career boost came more from the bosses she worked with than from any other source of advice.

    “I have been able to grow and succeed in my career because I have had two or three managers who have truly believed in me,” Parekh says, “One manager at Expedia helped me by doing two major things; pushing me into difficult challenges and providing amazing feedback.” She adds, “The kind of feedback I received from him was transformational for me, and I think that can only come from a boss who is much closer to your work than an outside mentor.”

    Parekh has succeeded through a lot of hard work and intense study and breaking into the world of top-level HR can often take years. We asked her what traits she thinks are essential in a good HR officer.

    “Business acumen is a crucial trait, because there are thousands of HR initiatives and you can be aware of the framework of it, but what makes one HR professional far better than others is an understanding of the business where they can advise the CEO, ‘because of where the business is, we should do X, Y, and Z’. If you can do that as an HR professional, that’s where the magic comes,” Parekh says, “Having a good sense of quantitative abilities is also very useful, because business is all numbers. Even if an HR professional doesn’t come from a data background, I think that is an area which is worth investing in and learning about.”

    Gender and racial inequality in the workplace has come a long way in recent years, but it is by no means perfect. Parekh has three children and a top-level position, which shatters what she describes as the typical perception.

    “My experience has been very positive, but I cannot say that reflects every woman’s experience. I think it’s come through a lot of hard work – people are aware that I outwork everybody else,” Parekh says, “But if I tell people without any context that I have three kids, there’s an assumption that I won’t be able to put as much time in as other employees. There is an expectation there, and that’s why you have to break it every time.”

    In a parting message to the industry, Parekh says, “Try it out. Hire a few female leaders and see how things go. Conversation isn’t enough, you have to actually put women in these roles, then you can see the advantages.”

  • An interview with HR professor Chris Brewster: “Dealing with people is an attractive option”

    Patrick Crowder

    Professor Chris Brewster, who teaches International Human Resource Management at Henley Business School, believes that there are no universal truths in Human Resources Management, and that one-size-fits-all solutions are often detrimental in the industry. He specialises in the changing world of work and teaches his students to be versatile. We asked him what he thinks about the leading theories in HRM, and what the key is to managing people successfully.

    “I have a friend who says that every new idea that’s ever come up about human resources management he can already find on his bookshelves if he looks at Plato or Aristotle or St. Augustine or Machiavelli. Lots of these guys have said a lot of things much better. And there’s a reason for that, which is that basically people haven’t changed over the last several thousand years,” Brewster says. “And it seems to me that basically, if you treat people properly in the way that you think they would like to be treated, you’ll get a better result than if you treat them just as digits or artefacts.”

    A variety of factors can affect the strategy which must be taken when managing people – this can have to do with the country you’re working in, the size of the company, and which sector you’re in. Brewster explains the hierarchy of these differences.

    “The most important thing is country. No matter which country you’re in, you have to follow the laws and the expectations of that country, and they vary pretty considerably. The second thing is size. Because obviously, if you’re running a small mom and pop corner shop with three people, you don’t manage it in the same way as if you’ve got 3000 people, that would be pretty crazy. So size actually makes a big difference. And that’s very important because most of what we know from the academics and from the consultancies and so on comes from large, well-funded companies with HR departments and things like that,” Brewster says.

    So what’s the outlook for those who study HR at university or at a business school? “Most people who are doing HR courses are probably going to end up in fairly small to medium-sized businesses, so they’re not going to be able to do what they’ve been told the big companies are doing.”

    Are there any other distinctions? “Thirdly, of course, there is a difference between managing people in the public sector or the private sector. There’s a difference between managing people in, let’s say, an office cleaning business and managing people in a laboratory. For example, there’s a big thing at the moment about big data and using fantastic algorithms to show where your most and least productive people are. If you’re running a small cafe somewhere, that really is not going to be a help to you, is it? So it’s a case, I think, of getting some kind of perspective on these things.”

    Many people are under the impression that human resource managers have a lot of power within a company to make changes and to optimise productivity, but Brewster says that the idea of human resource managers as all powerful is a misconception. Oftentimes, decisions about how to manage people will come down to line managers or other officers, so it is important for human resource managers to not overestimate their power and promise undeliverable items.

    “I’ve got some good stories where firms got taken over and the HR director was given a series of promises, and in good faith made these promises to the workforce, and then those promises were just blown out of the water after the merger took place. So I think you’ve got to understand the power situation that you’re in. Human Resource Management departments can be influential departments, but they’re never really going to be powerful departments,” Brewster explains. “The powerful departments are going to be the ones that control the money. There’s a task there for us to think about – how do we influence people? How do we understand what our influence and our power position is? How do we influence people to get a bit more power? There’s a lot of sort of loose talk by consultants about making the HR department more powerful and more strategic and so on.”

    Oftentimes, human resources officers are seen as unnecessarily bureaucratic, existing only to protect a company from liability and weed out the unproductive. The views that Murray expressed in his Telegraph piece are an example of an opinion which has floated around about HR for decades. We put this opinion to Brewster, who was keen to point out the difference between human resources and human resource management, and also to highlight the fact that just because a job is sometimes unpleasant does not mean that it is unnecessary.

    “Human resource management is used in two ways, and we have a problem because people don’t distinguish those two ways. I would argue that all organisations manage their people: you have to do that. It’s one of the things like managing your markets, your money, and your equipment, that all businesses have to do. But that’s not necessarily the same as the human resource management department. And I think a lot of people fairly casually talk about human resource management, when what they’re actually talking about is what the HR department does, rather than how the business manages its people,” Brewster argues. “And I think that’s one of the concerns – we have to be clear about what the HR department does. And at that level, yes, at universities for example HR departments are very concerned with making sure you’ve filled in the forms. I’m going to New York for a conference in May and I’ve got to fill in all sorts of forms about insurance and about health and safety. And only then can I actually book the flight – and I can’t book the flight myself, I have to book it through the HR department’s system. All of this is designed, of course, to make sure nothing bad happens to me. But it does look a lot like cop work, stopping me doing what I want to do until I’ve filled in all the forms. It’s a necessary task, but it’s not an exciting one, you know?”

    Despite the view of HR as bureaucratic and dry, there are many people who want to be human resource managers and are genuinely excited about human resources. We asked Brewster why he has a passion for HR. The industry is much more than filling in forms and ticking boxes – and as he explains, even the duller side of the profession is essential to the function of a business.

    “Lots and lots of people aspire to be human resource managers, and I think partly that’s because for a lot of individuals dealing with people is a more attractive option than dealing with numbers or dealing with bits of machinery or whatever. It’s a question of weighing these things up. There are parts of the human resource management function which are genuinely gratifying. I mean, I’ve been involved in things like training and so on myself, when you can actually see people grow in front of you, and that’s really good to do. But there’s a lot of other stuff that has to be done as well. I guess that’s the same for pretty much every job, and it’s about being careful not to oversell one thing at the expense of the other. There are good things and bad things about almost every job,” Brewster says. “These people who say, oh, let’s get rid of the HR department, it’s just a drag – you go ‘well, so who’s going to do those things?’ I mean, you can’t just let people do whatever they want. Firms can’t afford to keep breaking the law, for example, or to keep upsetting trade unions,. Somebody needs to look after that kind of stuff. If there are huge problems at work between individuals, it really helps to have somebody neutral who can actually look at that and deal with the problem.”

    Above all, Brewster teaches students how to be adaptable, which is an essential trait in HR considering the wide range of differences in the profession we’ve already discussed. We asked him what his number one piece of advice would be for someone looking to break into the world of HR, and more generally, how to succeed in an ever-changing world.

    “Look on everything as a learning opportunity,” Brewster says, “Try and learn as much about the business as you can. Try and learn as much about everybody as you can. Try and learn from your colleagues and your friends. There’s lots and lots of learning opportunities in every job, and the more we think of each job, not so much as an end result, or something we’ve got to plough through, but as a learning opportunity, the better. You’ll get better results both now and in the future.”

  • One in three UK employees find getting help from HR “hard or nearly impossible”, study finds

    Patrick Crowder

    How well do you know your Human Resources department? According to a new study, about half of you should answer, “not at all”. 

    Research by the HR software company Cezanne shows that only 55% of employees would definitely be able to recognise members of their HR teams if they passed in the hall. 27% of the group surveyed said that they definitely wouldn’t recognise any members of their HR teams, and the remaining people were unsure.

    This seems to represent a problem. We know that many companies have HR departments which offer solid support to their employees – that is not in question. However, the results of this survey show that some HR departments are lacking in engagement. In addition to that, one third of respondents found it “hard or nearly impossible” to get help from HR.

    The pandemic has caused a major shift in the way that people work and interact with colleagues. It has also been a time of anxiety, uncertainty, and depression for many people, so HR departments have recently had to play a much larger role in ensuring the mental wellbeing of their employees. 

    Cezanne’s study shows that, on the whole, employees were at least satisfied with their HR departments’ handling of the pandemic. In response to the question, “Do you trust your HR team more or less now than before Covid-19,” 32% of respondents said that they now have more trust in their HR departments than before the pandemic.  This is a good sign that a good number of companies engaged with their employees and helped them through the pandemic. 

    54% were indifferent, saying that their trust in HR had not changed. This may seem lacklustre but maintaining an existing relationship of trust in the face of adverse circumstances and unknowns is no easy task.

    Of the employees surveyed, 14% said that they trust their HR team less now following the pandemic, demonstrating that there were companies which mismanaged HR since 2020 leading to a drop in employee satisfaction.

    Overall, the pandemic could have been handled much worse by HR teams across the UK, and a relatively small drop in trust during that time is understandable. However, it is also clear that some HR teams are not doing enough to be accessible, understanding of, and helpful to employees. 

    HR is paramount to running and maintaining a healthy business, and the mental health needs of employees are of more concern now than ever before. The HR departments which excel often go well beyond expectations, and it’s up to those departments which are lacking to catch up fast or risk being left in the dust.

    Credit: Cezanne HR https://cezannehr.com/infographics/trust-in-hr/

  • Technology focus: Nicolas Croix on why companies must consolidate business applications

    Technology focus: Nicolas Croix on why companies must consolidate business applications

    Nicolas Croix

    With the massive proliferation of business productivity tools and applications designed to streamline processes and boost productivity, many businesses have a tough time deciding which apps to use. Ironically, in an attempt to make life easier for employees, companies are adding layers of complexity by signing up to several platforms, many of which aren’t integrated and ultimately have the opposite effect.

    The consumerisation of business technology has made access to applications accessible and has taken ownership away from IT departments. For example, Chiefmartec.com’s 2019 Martech 5000 report found that, in marketing technology alone, business applications grew from just 150 to more than 7,000 since 2011.

    In another recent study, Deloitte found that 33% of companies use more than ten individual pieces of HR software. Inevitably, this leads to inefficiencies. Despite how clever each app is in isolation, by adopting different platforms, you create siloes, replacing one long process with many shorter ones and adding zero benefits to the business. 

    According to IDC, over 80% of executives who responded to a recent survey said most of their problems come from a lack of systems integration – meaning their disparate solutions don’t “talk” to each other. In the same study, 43% of workers said they often have to double enter or rekey information, adding time and effort to the process rather than streamlining it.

    We frequently see companies spending time and money moving information from one software to another, investing in the latest, most excellent recruitment, HR and payroll software – but failing to consider integration. In the HR industry, controlling the flow of operations across every platform and channel is critical, and there is no easy way to achieve seamless interaction between tools and applications without a consolidated solution.

    Yet, the same IDC study revealed that executives across 1,500 different sectors and lines of business, including sales, HR, and procurement, estimated that resolving their inefficiency issues would generate 36% increased revenue, 30% lower costs, and 23% reduction in compliance risks.

    The ability to automate core recruitment, HR and payroll have enormous benefits. The earlier companies consolidate, the better equipped they can compete in a fast-moving business environment and become better companies to work for. In very few circumstances, it makes sense to have several applications doing the job of one consolidated solution.

    First, by consolidating HR business tools into a single platform, you can effectively streamline your operation without shifting from one application to the next, inputting the same data repeatedly, or having to check system after system to find the correct information. 

    Second, you can increase productivity by reducing the time and resources required to complete routine processes. At the most basic level, you will save a significant number of hours by using one or two platforms instead of many. 

    Third, it helps eliminate stress from slow, unresponsive systems due to needing too many apps running at once. This is worsened by the requirement to share data sets between platforms, which is not only tiresome and a waste of valuable time but could have serious security repercussions.

    Fourth, there is also the cost of running several applications when one will do. Consolidating platforms can increase your return on labour costs and increase employee satisfaction, with employees spending less time performing mundane tasks and being freed to focus on making a better contribution to the business.

    Finally, business applications should be easy to use and scalable to achieve a high adoption rate by end-users, namely your employees. The more business apps you use and the bigger your business grows, the longer and more complex it becomes to onboard new people and trains them on each of the tools they will need to do their job. There is no doubt that a modern and seamless application stack can drive a better employee experience and increase retention, but a more complicated one can have the opposite effect. 

    Simply put, more apps create more work; less is more; consolidation is key.

    The writer is the CEO of Moonworkers