We often hear that the human resources department is the lifeblood of business, yet many businesses still do not recognise HR as an important part of people strategy.
Surveying 468 companies, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu found that HR is ignored strategically and often sidelined even on traditional HR matters. Only 23 percent of corporate leaders see their HR departments as currently playing a crucial role in coming up with a corporate strategy and having a significant impact on operating results. Others (63 percent) of senior business executives rarely or never consult their senior HR team on mergers and acquisitions.
Even so, business leaders admitted that people are the company’s greatest asset, but not the HR department. More than 85 percent of all surveyed executives consider people “vital” to every aspect of their company’s performance. Meanwhile, 60 percent of senior business executives already consider people issues “very significant” or “highly significant” to strategic decision-making.
See also: Employees’ Wellbeing and Belongingness are Businesses Top Priority
Compared to other roles, human resources team might be seen as a department with the ‘least’ responsibility. For instance, in the IT department, most of its workers are busy and glued to their screen, trying their best to protect companies from malicious attacks and playing with codes daily to support business products or services. Meanwhile, HR will be roaming around the office, keeping an eagle eye on employees, which might seem mundane and easy to do.
Many individuals also believe that HR is just there to make the office environment fun to work, encourage employees, organise trips or activities, and play hire and fire games every day.
Behind the scene of HR jobs, however, are often ignored and forgotten. HR works as hard as the IT team to enrich hiring module, bring the best team for relevant company, manage employees, introduce company’s vision and mission to employees, and the most important job of HR responsibility is that they are responsible for the healthy office environment, thus increasing employees’ loyalty and productivity for the sake of company’s profit.
“Scenario why HR is often considered an underrated job with a bad reputation: When employees achieve a good result in a project, business executives will tend to praise the said employees. Yet, when there are employees who could not handle tasks or often mess up with the company system, HR is the one to blame for bringing in wrong hires.”
Let’s imagine that HR does not do all the responsibilities, rather they are just sparing time and CEOs will handle all the needs of their employees. What might happen? Here are the possibilities if a company does not have an HR department, especially big corporations.
Let’s assume that HR is not the lifeblood of business, but rather a traffic light on a crowded crossroad, said HR Manager Madhuri Chaniyara. Both are responsible for managing humans and both are hardly appreciated by human beings. Yet, when the traffic light is off, you can expect jams and accidents.
Moreover, while protecting and managing the company is one of difficult responsibilities for HR experts, never lose the touch of humanity. The nature of “human” resources is to foster a human side within a company that could drive a real result of productivity while managing the compliance with employment law and policy.
Read also: The Difference between People Operations & HR Management
