In a brief survey carried out by a group of sociology students in the Microcentro of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, the data collected indicates that of 150 employees in organizations that have a Human Resources Department, 128 affirm that the Human Resources area “does not plays no relevant role in the organization ”, 13 employees consider“ not knowing what this area does ”, and the remaining 9 believe that the area“ plays a key role within the organization ”. The last 9 fulfill functions within the HR Department of their respective companies.
Ten years ago, an article in Fast Company magazine entitled "Why We Hate Human Resources", the author determined the impossibility of human resources professionals becoming strategic partners in the decisions of large companies. "Human resources people, to be practical, are neither strategic nor leaders," stated the article. Ten years after those lines, in the middle of the Buenos Aires downtown, the employees reaffirm the death sentence of the so-called “human resources”.
Lisandro is an employee of an educational institution; birthday on April 12. This year, on the 11th of that month, he received a greeting card in the mail to his institutional mailbox. It was from the Human Resources Department of the company and said: "Leandro: we wish you a great day", then came drawings of balloons and confetti and finally closed with the phrase "Thank you, Leonardo, for being part of our family". The card had two lines on it; In the two lines there were two different proper names and neither was Lisandro's, discounting that the "family" sent him the card the day before his birthday.If the Human Resources Department, for these circumstances, were replaced by a computer program, it would be much more effective and Lisandro would have been called Lisandro and he would have received his card in a timely manner. In this example, which is replicated daily in thousands of companies that have a human resources area, not even from a distance can strategy and leadership criteria be evaluated, but simply question under what faculties someone who cannot follow the reading of An excel spreadsheet with names and birthday dates, will be enabled to evaluate the curricula and select the personnel of the same company. In this sense,the functioning of the human resources area, in the simplest daily lives, is a disvalue for the organization and does not produce in employees more than the smile of derision.
In 1997 Dave Ulrich tried to outline the critical roles of an area that should make the human, a resource for a more effective and empathetic organizational functioning. In this categorization, the human resources area becomes, under Ulrich's idealization, a strategic partner and agent of change, going far beyond the strictly administrative. In our reality, the area is much "further down" even from the most basically automated administrative management, in a situation where human resources managers do not know their employees or would not know how to know them, because they simply do not have the theoretical training that could allow them to draw up a genuine plan when it comes to the universe of "soft" skills. In this way, the hard area is restricted to the correct use of a salary settlement program, while the soft area fades into the uselessness of "who are we?" for which there is not even a short-term goal.
This theoretical deficiency is harmful to employees and discrediting for employers. In the end, this lack is exposed and leads to questioning the true need for a human resources area.Thus, companies begin by hiring consultancies that achieve the desired profile - even though they have, in their own internal organization, a Department destined for this purpose - and end by boasting the incorporation of “happiness managements”. Empathy managements, organizations where the employees decide on the employees, social responsibility departments, labor psychology cabinets, talent directorates… resources that indicate, on the one hand, the failure of Human Resources management; on the other, its need for the internal cohesion of an organization made by and for men. It is time to think if the human can be a resource; If the answer is affirmative, the managers of the companies should reflect on what capacities those in charge of implementing the human should have, since the prestige or the errant babble of the organization depends on them.
