Special education degree on line

Ask the employees at your company what HR does and how well they do it, and be prepared for a verbal assault. Collar a line manager. Interview a CEO. Inquire about HR'S organizational role and its reputation. Be ready to hear things about your work that range from the politely acceptable to the downright brutal.

"Bullying bureaucrats" is a term that one employee uses to describe HR. In a quest to learn more about how employees, line managers, top executives, and professionals themselves describe HR's purpose and performance, Workforce interviewed dozens of people in all kinds of organizations. When it came to employees, however, not one was willing to talk on the record, itself a powerful statement. Many said they feared retribution, and variously described HR people as incompetent, unsympathetic, and punitive.

Taken together, their comments contribute to a greater understanding of where HR is today, and the future direction of the profession. The news isn't, of course, all bad. In fact, HR may be poised to play a far more pivotal leadership role in business in the years to come, perhaps under a different name, perhaps with a different charge.

In recent years, there may have been a great deal of buzz about HR's increased strategic role, but there has been far less action. However, as more people in leadership positions come to recognize HR's role in adding value to business, experts say, HR will be viewed not as a corporate stepchild but as a respected executive player.

Professionals in the field say a change in perception about HR is paramount to its productivity and future success. HR must re-examine its priorities and its identity. It must learn executive skills, and it must become far better skilled at selling itself.

Employees are customers, too

Employees are HR's largest constituency, and HR sees its obligation to employees as substantial and profound. Rich Podurgal, vice president of organization and people development for Analytical Sciences, Inc., in Durham, North Carolina, says, "HR is about making the company successful. We support the business through people."

That happens in several ways. Paul Benson, who has spent more than 30 years as an HR professional in organizations such as Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay, and Kaiser Permanente, likens HR's role to teaching the hungry to fish. Benson, who is now a leadership coach with his own firm, New Directions Unlimited, in Placentia, California, means that helping employees develop skills and allowing them to reach their full potential is tantamount to success.

But development isn't enough. Alan Wolfson, an HR consultant with the Hay Group and a veteran of IBM's HR function, says that successful HR professionals must be focused on internal customers, including employees. One of the ways that HR supports the business is to ensure equity in several areas, including working conditions, rewards, and day-to-day treatment.

"This doesn't mean that all employees are treated as equals," he says. "But it does mean that there needs to be a justifiable reason for differences."

But Podurgal cautions that HR should be careful not to advocate for employees. "We have to advocate for the business" he says. "Advocating for employees pits us against senior management, which is not strategic." Instead, he argues that HR should protect employee interests through intelligent people policies.

Advocacy is, of course, precisely what most employees want. They say that inequity is common. They want HR to be their advocate. An employee at a nonprofit firm, for example, went to HR for help. His manager had assigned him more work than anyone else in the department. When he asked for help in setting priorities, his manager told him that helping him set priorities was not her job. She then stopped speaking to him. HR responded to his plea for help by saying there was nothing they could do.

It is an oft-repeated story. But what employees mean by advocacy is surprising. They want HR to fill jobs quickly and to hire people--including managers--who are qualified to do the work. Employees say that nothing else HR does has as much impact on their day-to-day work experience. Though they grudgingly admit that HR does fill jobs, they complain that the process is too long and that HR often hires the wrong people. Asked why, they blame HR for being distracted by its own agenda.

"HR is a very reactive group with both feet planted firmly in old-style, autocratic, top-down, 1 1950s-style policies" says a county government employee. "It's based on old-style thinking where the manager reigns supreme and employees are there to simply carry out policy and perform tasks."

They see rules to follow and forms to complete, and their perception of HR is largely one of bullying bureaucrats. "I received an 'urgent' fourth notice that I needed to get a TB test," a university librarian says. "I was told the next notice would come from the college president! I got the test right away, but I hadn't received any notice before the 'death threat.'"

One reason why employees see HR as bureaucratic is that their first and most common interactions with HR are bureaucratic: TB tests, employment applications, benefit enrollment forms, 1-9 forms, change-of-address forms. One HR executive observed, "Ask a typical four-year-old what a mother's job is. You're likely to hear 'baking cupcakes' or 'driving to school.' People focus on what they see."

Yet even as employees deride the bureaucratic side of HR, they also depend on it. They expect accurate paychecks and prompt processing of benefit claims. In that context, employee perceptions of HR correlate precisely to whether their bureaucratic needs are being met. If overtime is paid promptly and accurately, HR is great. If too much is withheld for Social Security from paychecks, then HR is terrible. You would be highly unlikely to find any employees who know or care whether government paperwork is filed on time, even if it indirectly benefits them.

"One of the biggest challenges is that employees see HR as the reason for their problems," says Carrie Shearer, a consultant in Ithaca, New York with more than 30 years of HR experience. "If they don't like their boss, it's HR's fault. If they suddenly have a serious illness and realize that medical insurance is only supplemental and they must come up with mucho cash from their own pockets, it's HR's fault. If they feel overworked and under-appreciated, it's HR's fault, because even if there are recognition programs and all that other good stuff, there is always someone less deserving than the unhappy employee who got something. HR is the scapegoat."

The debate about whether employees and HR can ever really see eye to eye may never be completely resolved. But it may be possible to narrow the gap. Paul Benson has done just that. When he took over the HR function at Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier, California, nurses were on strike over pay and benefits issues and staff morale was low. Benson learned that nurses' salaries were lower than average among area hospitals. The benefits, however, were the best offered by any hospital in Southern California.

The trouble was, no one--not even the hospital's management group--knew that. Benson and his team began an aggressive communication plan to promote the benefits. Salaries were raised to bring them into parity with those of other hospitals. The HR team also began to address other issues in the work environment that were contributing to low morale, such as scheduling and lack of career development. The strategy was so effective that over three years, the hospital was able to reduce the benefit package by 30 percent without jeopardizing morale.

In fact, not only did morale improve, but surveys conducted at the time of the strike also showed that 54 percent of Presbyterian employees were satisfied with their jobs, versus a 56 percent national average. Within three years, satisfaction had jumped to 70 percent and was continuing to rise at a time when the national average had stalled.

Benson credits improved communication for the turnaround. In surveys and focus groups, employees acknowledged the benefit cuts, but said that other changes in the overall work environment compensated for the reductions. And they said they understood what HR was doing, and why the changes were necessary.

The line managers see HR's value--really

If employees give HR mixed reviews, do the line managers see HR more favorably? Again, the news is mixed. In a recent landmark study, Cornell University professor Patrick Wright and three colleagues studied how HR and managers each see HR's effectiveness in its service delivery, roles, and contributions to the firm.