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Why Are You in Human Resources?

Feb 19, 2010 / Human Resources / Trackback

I looked up the def­i­n­i­tion of Human Resources today and I got soup to nuts and didn’t run into the same one twice. So, using my own brain after read­ing the var­i­ous def­i­n­i­tions I encoun­tered, I fil­tered out the fluff and cob­bled together my own definition:

The strate­gic and coher­ent approach towards man­age­ment of an organization’s human capital

Short, sweet, open to a world of inter­pre­ta­tion. Whether you like my def­i­n­i­tion or another one you sub­scribe to, social ser­vices and men­tal health pro­fes­sions are dif­fer­ent BLS Stan­dard Occu­pa­tional Clas­si­fi­ca­tions (SOC). HR pro­fes­sions are SOC 13–1070 under the par­ent SOC group 13–0000 Busi­ness and Finan­cial Oper­a­tions Occu­pa­tions.

Do you see where we work? Busi­ness and Finan­cial Oper­a­tions Occupations.

If I would have cho­sen to work in human resources because I wanted to help peo­ple my pri­or­i­ties would have been mixed up and I would have made a poor choice. Per­haps you think that sounds cold hearted. But what should the focus be for a human resources prac­ti­tioner? It seems clear to me that it is to ensure the prof­itabil­ity of the com­pany through the man­age­ment of its human capital.

Why do some of us get wrapped up in employ­ees’ prob­lems, think we are their par­ent, think we have to “take care” of them, think we have a respon­si­bil­ity to help them live their lives and even solve their per­sonal problems?

Do some of us pur­sue a career in human resources for the wrong reasons?

Do a quick self assess­ment to check– you know, kind of like tak­ing your tem­per­a­ture with a ther­mome­ter, to con­tem­plate if you con­tribute to or enable the unhealth­i­ness of a sick work envi­ron­ment or even help cre­ate one with a lop­sided view or bad def­i­n­i­tion of your role in human resources.

If you find you have a fever, head on over to Free man­age­ment Library’s The Free Micro-eMBA℠ for treatment.


Image: Con­fu­sion by Adi Ron (2005) licensed under the Cre­ative Com­mons Attri­bu­tion 2.0 Generic license


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  • Bri­an­pjensen

    I have strong opin­ions on the mat­ter expressed on sev­eral posts regard­ing Employ­ees and Busi­ness Value, Employ­ees are Won­der­ful and The anti-people depart­ment. My sim­ple ver­sion of HR’s role is: To build the company’s tal­ent base to increase the value of the firm.
    I am not keen on expres­sions like “Human Cap­i­tal” or call­ing peo­ple “assets.” Attempts to describe the cash liq­uid value of peo­ple are demean­ing, not flat­ter­ing. More­over, it is incor­rect on the finan­cial state­ment to call peo­ple assets or cap­i­tal when pay­roll is clearly an expense. I value your feed­back.
    http://www.switchhr.com/2010/03/14/the-anti-peo…
    http://www.switchhr.com/2010/03/03/employees-ar…

    I also think your site is great!

  • http://karlaporter.com/ Karla Porter

    @Tammy — You got it Toy­ota… it’s to who but­ters your bread fur sure.
    @Shennee — If all I accom­plish in my life is to ask ques­tions that make peo­ple think I will have much sat­is­fac­tion =)
    @Norm — If you print those signs I will help you sell them for a small com­mis­sion. I’ll work on “vol­ume sales”. The fancy term comes from eco­nomic the­ory which rec­og­nizes four main types of cap­i­tal – phys­i­cal, nat­ural, human, and cul­tural. It’s just as prac­ti­cal to call what we man­age the workforce”.

  • nor­m­gavlick

    Great Points Karla. Human Resources, or Per­son­nel as in the “old days” is not social work. For those in HR and/or con­sid­er­ing an HR career your pri­mary objec­tive is the bot­tom line prof­itabil­ity of your employer. Like it or not that is the real­ity. If you accept that premise and make every deci­sion based on that premise you should be able to retain your san­ity. Notwith­stand­ing all of the other “stuff” HR peo­ple have to deal with. All HR offices should have a sign on the door that says, “Social Ser­vices Office– down the hall to the left”. By the way„„„ why and how did we get to, “human cap­i­tal man­age­ment”? What was wrong with Per­son­nel Manager?

  • shen­nee

    Karla–
    Another Great Thought pro­vok­ing post! You really get us all to THINK!
    You bring up the point of how we can all become too enabling and more like a social worker.
    I think we can get a lit­tle too involved in the “human” aspect and not enough in the Resources part of the job..
    Thanks for con­tin­u­ing to inspire us!
    Shen­nee

  • http://twitter.com/TLColson Tammy Col­son

    I call it “cross­ing over to the dark side” or “remem­ber­ing who signs your pay­check” — HINT: its not the employees.


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