Chez Kay
Andrew Kay ponders the irrational overanalysed world of Human Resources
What times we live in, our world full of people telling us how to do what we do, how to sue, how to claim, how to protect ourselves… And for the most part I sense that the people who are doing the telling, have few qualifications for doing so.
When did it all start to go wrong? When did everything that we do become dictated by teams of professional managers, the battalions of industry pros who don’t actually do anything but make a living telling us what to do. I hesitate to use the term but I think they gather under the banner ‘Human Resources‘. Human resources? Name them!
Never have I seen more profligate waste than in the paper churning, form filling, assessment and appraisal mad world of HR.
‘‘Never have I seen more profligate waste than in the paper churning, appraisal mad world of HR’’
In a previous incarnation I was sent on a management course to learn about appraisal skills. I was sent home for being disruptive. I wasn’t trying to be difficult but so much of the claptrap that they were spouting left me baffled and I felt bound to question it. I for one thing think that tiered appraisals are worthless if your line manager is not good at that process. They may well be brilliant at the job they were appointed to perform, but lousy at appraisals. Result, failure in the line.
Too much of our time is filled with time-consuming, tree felling, form filling. Why can’t we just get on with our jobs? It’s a joy here at Latest Magazines, the company is small enough to turn on a sixpence, and wise enough not to chuck good money after bad on time draining systems that only seem to create more paperwork that in turn requires analysing and reporting on. It’s a particularly vicious circle this HR thing and one that is self-perpetuating and self-serving. Create a form, distribute that form, assess that form, report on that form, create a new form based on that new form… Sod the first form, ask the people who matter face-to-face and deal with it. We have become a nation of backstabbing bullies, wimps and cowards.
And what of the HR masses you might ask? Well it’s time for them to stop beating us and get a proper job.
There’s a cattle market stench to the concept of a human resource. Is that all you are? A resource, to be bought and sold? Or are you a person? Yes, a person who may need the help of a personnel department. There was the change, personnel looked after you, Human Resources, administer you. I am a person not a resource, human or otherwise, and the sooner we all make that clear then the sooner a little respect will return to the workplace.
