[First published in Economic Times, 13th Jan 2025]
The HR function is often criticised in organisations for not doing what it is meant to. The narratives are often along the lines of HR straying away from its purpose, it becoming a compliance function and not a strategic partner, does not do enough to fulfil the potential of people or empower them, or just doing a tick-box job. The list can go on, depending on whom you ask and the respondent’s mood.
While all these are valid points, the real question in my mind is ‘Is it only HR who is answerable to all of these’? By pointing these questions blankly at HR, we are missing the larger point. If we are serious about people development, we need to reframe these questions to everyone who should be having skin in the game.
If we see organisations as a place where people with different skills and ambitions come together to express their creative abilities, solve problems, find fulfilment, and derive economic/financial value, then commitment to people development is everyone’s business. All of us are a combination of hopes, aspirations, ambitions, fears, anxieties, insecurities, and vulnerabilities. And human interactions in organisations will lay bare all these, throwing enough challenges for everyone. Like Alain de Botton, British author, philosopher, and founder of The School of Life says, “We are working with some of the most complicated pieces of technology ever generated in the cosmos—namely human beings.”
The only way then to think about people development agenda is for the managers and leaders to start by acknowledging the fact that human nature is complex, but at the same time, everyone is motivated by growth. Genuine growth is when professional and personal growth go hand in hand. The organisational context gives an opportunity for everyone to discover themselves, and grow in both dimensions, getting better and better in what they do and how they behave. Of course, change requires an effort from the individual. But it means leaders need to try and understand the context from where people come while trying to continuously align individual ambitions with the broader organisational ambitions and goals. This is not something HR alone can do. This is a leadership agenda with HR as an equal partner, and in the process, leadership also helps HR teams set higher ambitions for themselves and help them grow.
We have not shaken off the century-old Taylorism school of management, despite the advances in our collective understanding of human psychology and neuroscience. Productivity is for machines, not people. Our machines need to be efficient, but we want our people to be effective. Effective people drive business. Effective people need a head-and-heart approach. And it needs to flow through the line managers. Because we think people development is a stand-alone task and is the responsibility of only HR teams, we relegate them to the sides, who then end up doing the standardised to-do lists, and we lament about the tick-mark job. Leadership needs to see people development as an agenda integrated with business and make HR a key part of the journey.
One quip often heard about the people in HR function is that many people enter this field with genuine passion but stray away from it. It is very easy to park the onus on the HR teams, but if people development is in the larger scheme of things for the organisation, this can be easily avoided.
Simply put, it needs CEO/leadership commitment and support to elevate HR. Without that, it is merely confining the problem to one constituency.