A letter to L&D: HR is your BFF

 

It is almost exactly five years since 'Fast Company' - the US-based business magazine- published its seminal article by Keith Hammonds, its deputy editor, called: 'Why we hate HR.' He wrote it as a direct reaction to attending a strategic HR conference in Las Vegas! Hammonds argues that after 20 years of rhetoric claiming that HR is a strategic partner helping to run the business at the highest level, 'HR people are, for most practical purposes, neither strategic nor leaders.' And the reason we hate HR is that the gap between claim and reality is so stark we have lost respect for the function that is still buried in what he calls 'administrivia'. HR, he claims, consistently over-promises and under-delivers by failing to step up to the mark.