A Relatively brief History of Personnel and Human Resources: Sixty years ago, and then through the 1980s, there was a department in most large companies called "Personnel." It was the principle administrative department, often encompassing payroll (much to the dismay of Accounting), and always administering benefits - what little there was of them for the first 20 years. Benefits included, not only health and life insurance, but vacations, sick leave, bereavement leave, and what few retirement plans that existed.
Toward the end of the 1960s and building steam was the "woman's movement." More militant than the suffragettes and the suffrage movement, it was surreptitiously successful. That is, it was successful without any outward signs other than a few headlines in newspapers, and it wasn't as noticeable as a "movement" except when Bella Abzug's hat would appear along with a few others who were vocal about the movement. But as vocal as the few were, they still did not get the press as some even minor movements do today like "Save the Delta Smelt Even Though It Isn't a Native Species and Our Farms Could Go Under and All Our Produce Will Come From Overseas and We Won't Produce Anything," aka STDSETIISANSAOFCGUAAOPWCFOAWWPA. (Note that the only place in the world where this can be pronounced is in Welsh town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch.)
One process that did occur in the 1980s which is of interest to us is that women who were secretaries and administrative assistants were slowly, then quickly moved into Personnel, and in the 80s and 90s given titles such as Personnel Assistant, then Personnel Director, and then in the 80s and 90s, Human Resources Whatevers, i.e., every title in HR even though there may have been no background or experience for it.
Mind you, the move of women into this thing called "Human Resources" never bothered me. Women had been performing many of the responsibilities and ancillary clerical functions in Personnel for some years. What did concern me was the direction that this gave human resources. Women, as the more nurturing sex, became the mother hens of personnel, often losing their perspective as representatives of the company first, counselors to staff or employees, second. As I've often said, they also became the "cruise directors" of the company, planning parties (going-away, birthday, anniversaries), conventions, and charity drives equally with administering what little was left of payroll, vacation and sick leave tracking, and retirement which was meeting its demise when AT&T laid off 65,000 at one swell foop and, thereby getting rid of potential retirees (and starting a trend in 1988 which led to layoffs for the sake of phantom profits which would come back and bite those too big to fail in the ass in the first decade of the new century).
The Loss of Structure and Authority: I am by no means intimating that woman have caused the decline of human resources as a "discipline" although the push to call it "Human Resources" didn't help. After HR became HR, there were all sorts of silly - yes, downright silly titles that were thought up by women or Larry Ellison for the HR Director position. Just last week, I was in a ATBTF (Almost Too Big To Fail) company where the HR Director was called the "Director of People Services." Sounds like a concierge to me. And during the dot-com period, I heard everything from "People Manager" to "Chief People Counselor." Not only were these accepted as "state of the art" titles, but SHRM even promoted them, and those who came up with them or held the positions lost credibility which had been diligently built from the 1980s through the 1990s when some very bright people in HR/Personnel (including the then president of SHRM) stated that Human Resources should be most concerned with strategic planning, and that strategic planning was the one area which would reserve a place at the senior management table for any large corporation.
However, since many HR positions had been filled by inexperienced people - including those with degrees, but no knowledge of organizations - few knew how to plan, organize, direct or control. In other words, there were fewer people, men and women, who can through and out of the dot-com era who knew how to manage. Ask anyone under the age 0f 50 today, and I'd bet that fewer than half can tell you who Peter Drucker was, and less than half of that half have even read one article let alone book by Drucker. That is one of the problems with today's society: when you die, your ideas seem to die with you, and at the speed of what we still refer to as "communications."
So what happened was that, instead of strategic planning, protecting ones position in the TBTF companies became entrenched even though some of those positions no longer had a reason for being. In the 1960s, Personnel encompassed everything from compensation administration to retirement to union-management relations, although the latter might often be found as a separate function with a separate management crew from Personnel. Between 1995 and 2010, eight percent of HR may well have been outsourced.
I have been in private practice for 30 years. Initially, while I wrote policy and procedure handbooks for the smallest of companies, one of my major services was counseling individual managers and company officers in organization development, problem prevention, and interpersonal problem solving. As the years went on, although I still established policies and procedures for these smaller companies, the consulting became more of mentoring HR managers as well as company presidents in maintaining a structure and setting lines and limits of authority. While these seem old-fashioned to many, most understand that a company without structure and lines of authority, has the possibility or eventuality of too many directions where everyone can make a decision and no one is accountable, somewhat like Homeland Security. ("Good job, Brownie.")
And instead of HR coordinating responsibilities, helping with structure, authority, decision making, and developing employees so that there is a known and implementable succession plan, many of the senior HR managers are really managing the "Departure Department," since a layoff really isn't a layoff (see last month's editorial).
How Work Works: The workaday world today is not the one that I knew. There is no corporate ladder. If I wanted a career with Microsoft, or Oracle, or any other company that would have been considered a monopoly just 25 years ago, I would find no career path, no roadmap, no person who could help me get from point A to point B. And given sufficient time, there will be no point A and point B. You come in at point A, and then move to another company if you could find a place to become educated and experienced. 1984 may actually be coming rather than past...
When I started working, we got our news from newspapers and TV. Newspapers that haven't disappeared today, get most of their news from one source. One can read the Wall Street Journal in the Contra Costa Times and, on Sunday, catch up on some New York Times articles in the same CoCo Times. The only thing that one can get from newspapers is opinion, but even that must be tempered by the fact that those writing these editorials are at the usual point of repeating themselves. I've noticed that even George Will has lost the many ways that he used to be able to couch his thoughts. The same is true of Brooks, Kristol, Noonan, and Huffington. And what passes for "news" on TV, both broadcast and cable, isn't news, but opinion and diatribe. Not that it matters. In order to watch the news on cable, you have to be able to read three crawls and the weather report while looking at four talking or screaming heads, most not having the foggiest idea of what is truth and what is conjecture. However, society has changed with the times, and many of our English speaking citizens think that those who yell the loudest must know what they're talking about.
How does that affect work? Well, for one thing, managers have lost that slew of people who used to write about management. The last text book I read about HR was last year and was a rehash of a 1982 text about a Chris Argyris monograph on organization. There's a dearth of ideas on what to do with management or how to manage, and it's easy to tell why. We were not prepared for a global economy. We were not prepared for the lack of manufacturing in the U.S. or Canada or Mexico. The northern hemisphere seems to have sent all "work" west (well, east, but that depends on which way you're facing). And least prepared of all has been human resources and the human resources they used to "help" and "manage."
Last week, there was a TV program on "Dogs at Work," in this case at a large advertising agency. I pretty much covered all that I had to say on dogs at work 12 years ago, and I see that some large companies did heed my advice and will pay for this mistake. But this was an ad agency. I suppose that ad agencies are supposed to be creative and, in order to be creative, employees need their dogs with them so that they can be calm and not have to worry about what their dogs are doing at home (now that everybody in the family has to work and no one is home to keep the dog company). Now all they have to worry about is that their dog might bite somebody at work (they only have three times before they're banned from the workplace) or get into fights with other dogs.
One also would have noticed that some employees were riding bikes in the work space, or on roller blades, or scooters. No one was "dressed for success" unless Levi's and a blouse or T-shirt is the new casual.
You know, the military has a specific reason for having uniforms, and it happens to be a base identity. All it takes to distinguish authority is a star or an eagle or a stripe. The only place where "uniforms" are used so that you have no identity is a hospital and you're the patient. Now the workplace makes everybody look alike and that's what makes everyone an individual? I still say that sloppy dress leads to sloppy work habits. I noticed that even the federal government has relaxed its "dress code." Pretty soon, you'll go to a doctor who you'll know to be a doctor only because he or she is wearing a stethoscope ($85 on eBay).
What Does HR Do About This? I have no idea. I have published over 600 articles, and I've never had to write about a function so lost as HR in large companies. I thought about calling this article, "Swan Song for a Dead Duck," but I'll leave that for someone who is going to retire. Oh, wait. In a couple of years, that will be me. My function as a counselor remains. And smaller companies still understand the need for policies and procedures because they still understand the potential for loss and the need for structure. And there are some who still remember Maslow and have a basic understanding of human needs. Well, perhaps if HR can regain those core philosophies and principles, HR managers can become counselors, or organization builders, and write policies that make sense in today's work world. And maybe some of them can work for the government and not get their exercise by jumping to conclusions or rushing to judgment or chasing their tails. Maybe they will realize that reaction is usually much worse than action that has thought behind it. And maybe, HR can dig us out of this hole that they allowed to be dug by the likes of the CEO's of those companies too big to fail. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is too big to fail. Keep that in mind after I'm retired and sitting under a tree and finally getting a picture of that illusive Western Bluebird.
*Note: For those who have lost the ability to read, (1) more than three-quarters of this editorial has been addressed at large companies (and government agencies), and (2) I am not retiring yet, although if someone would like to buy this company, give me a call at 925-944-1034.
All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2010. Ethan A. Winning