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OPINION
Be
Redundant !
Gautam Ghosh on the facilitative function of
HR, being redundant to survive and the single most important
asset you need to possess |
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Apr 2010 |
HRM
: You mentioned in one of your blog postings that the HR group
within any organisation is often in a confusing situation. In
particular, you made a point that most organisations demand a
lot of accountability from their HR groups without the corresponding
responsibility. Do you believe this to be the case largely from
a national perspective or have you encountered this elsewhere?
Why do you believe this to be so?
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HR
Matters Magazine
Issue 10 | April 2010
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Gautam Ghosh
is a Consultant at 2020 Social,
a Social Business Strategy firm based in Delhi, India.
He looks after the Employee and Partner practice of
the firm, advising clients on how to build online
communities for these audiences.
Gautam has over a decade of experience as an Organisational
Development and HR professional with organisations
such as Dell, Hewlett Packard and Deloitte in India.
He is one of India’s leading bloggers.
His blog has been listed by HRWorld amongst the top
25 HR blogs worldwide and also amongst the Career
100 - a list of the top 100 career related blogs globally
in the English language. He was also rated by industry
leader John Sumser as one of the100 most influential
HR/Recruiting people in the world. Visit his blog.
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Gautam : My point is that the HR function in an
organisation is a facilitative one. It's role is to build capability
in the functions that build business and build the product. This
is the case, not just for India, but HR functions worldwide.
However, people both in business and in HR, do not understand how
to track "effective facilitation" as an output measurement.
Hence, HR often gets tracked for "input" metrics. Things
such as people hired, turn-around time, number of people trained,
salary hikes given in time, the number of performance appraisals
done within a timeframe etc. HR practitioners resist the attempt
to measure themselves on metrics that are output oriented, and quite
rightly so - as these are impacted by line managers.
This is the paradox that HR always finds it in.
HRM : The argument you put forth is that for HR to survive,
HR has to be redundant. What do you mean here?
Gautam : I believe that great HR enables internal clients
to build their capabilities in all aspects of people management.
Like the Quality movement that made quality everyone's job in the
organisation (not just the Quality Departments'), I believe that
HR would be successful when organisations don't need an HR department
to handle all people-related needs.
There might be a couple of people in HR just to advise the CEO on
strategic matters – but certainly not the huge HR teams we
see today!
HRM : In our April issue, we have a Q&A on the junction
where psychology and HR meet. We know the facilitative approach
is well-suited to HR’s subject matter and it’s clear
that the HR professional needs to possess many skills in order to
thrive in their industry and the business they support. But what
would you say is the single most important asset a good HR manager
would be well-placed to have?
Gautam : I believe the knowledge of the business - which
comes out of a cross-functional move in line business - is imperative
for HR people. Not vicariously, but by spending time in the trenches,
and at the frontline. I personally don't think careers should be
vertical in organisations. There should not be "career marketers",
"career salespeople" or "career HR folk".
Being someone who knows what business is - gives a person a point
of view. That is a key asset for any manager - especially an HR
professional. 
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