Following the American Psychological Association’s Guidelines
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Some people believe that Human Resource Management’s key role is to control employees and the HR managers are “power hungry” people. Why do you think this belief has emerged? Is there any factual basis for it?
Human Resources Management can be defined as the process of hiring people and further nurturing them, so that they develop professionally and personally. Human Resources Management is basically used to transform employees into valuable assets of the organization; HR takes care of job profiles, training and performance management, salaries and incentives etc.
There are few other reasons too. HR Managers are more loyal to the company, rather than the employees. So, if an employee wants to quit, he/she is made to undergo rigorous stress interviews, are demanded long notice periods from and also asked to pay certain release money. HR Managers control the way people dress up and come to work. Defaulters, who don’t wear business casuals, are reprimanded and a bunch of policy violation clauses are hurled at them. Salaries and perks are the main reasons for a person to opt for a particular organization than the other. However, here too, HR managers control the promotions and pay details. Thus, dissatisfied and underpaid employees bear a deep resentment towards the HR managers.
The HR Managers are also employees at the same organization and only doing their work. Yes, their work is to oversee other employees. If they are too soft or lenient and give in to demands of the people often, the board of directors would eat up the jobs of the HR managers. So, their controlling nature shouldn’t be misjudged. The HR Department is doing its work too, just like you and me.
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But there are a few factual evidences of bad HR too. There is the classical example of the Toyota Crash in 2010. HR played a major role in that. They didn’t pay enough good remuneration to the employees; they didn’t provide effective training to the people; they did no risk management and neither did they try to retain the top employees. BusinessWeek had estimated that Toyota was losing $155 million each week in 2010 and the mechanical failures were known to Toyota from way before. Yet, the HR didn’t take any strict action to remedy the same. So, HR was just a power hungry HR, not an effective HR.( Dr.John Sullivan, 2010)
A second example would be that of the “Bad Boss of the Week” where an employee was promised a job where she would be an in-house expert, but she was made to travel almost daily and rudely told that now her new responsibility would involve traveling .Bad and dominating HR again!( Suzanne Lucas,2014)
So, all in all not all HRs are bad and controlling- their job demands them to oversee things. But there are certainly examples of HRs who are sheer dominating and demanding, without proper justification. They are bad at what they do and the employees and the company bears the brunt of it. The HR is the link between the employer and employee. They have to keep both the sides happy; else HR is not effective at its fundamental.
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Works Cited:
1. Suzanne Lucas.n.d.Bad Boss of the Week: Lying in the Job Description. Retrieved from http://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas-/bad-boss-of-the-week-lying-in-the-job-description.html
2. Dr.John Sullivan (2010, Feb 15).A Think Piece: How HR Caused Toyota to Crash. Retrieved from http://www.ere.net/2010/02/15/a-think-piece-how-hr-caused-toyota-to-crash/
