In the article below, how relevant do you think it is about HR in present time and how much if/when has changed in HR?

a gathering of several hundred midlevel human-resources executives in Las Vegas. (Yo, Wayne Newton! How's the 401(k) ?) They are here, ensconced for two days at faux-glam Caesars Palace, to confer on "strategic HR leadership," a conceit that sounds, to the lay observer, at once frightening and self-contradictory. If not plain laughable. This, friends, is the trouble with HR. In a knowledge economy, courses toward a asuccesstul career in HR," 83% said that classes companies that have the best talentwin. We all know that. Human in interpersonal communications skills had "extremely high resources execs should be making the most of our, well, human salue." Employment law and business ethies followed, at 71% and resources-finding the best hires, nurturing the stars, fostering 60%, respectively. Where was change management? At 35%. Stratea productive work environment-just as IT runs the computers gic management? 32\%. Finance? Um, that was just 2%. literally to the brink of obsolescence. They are competent at the talent, HR has to understand how people serve corporate objecadministrivia of pay, benefits, and retirement, but companies tives. Instead, "business acumen is the single biggest factor that increasingly are farming those functions out to contractors whocan HR professionals in the U.S. lack today, says Anthony J. Rucci, handle such routine tasks at lower expense. What's leit is the executive vice president at Cardinal Health Inc, a big healthin business, your first instinet is not to join the human resources. Do you know what challenges they facep" Second, who is the com- dance. |At the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, petition? "What do they do well and not wellza And most imporwhich arguably boass the nation's top faculty for organizational tant, who are we? "What is a realistic assessment of what we do well roles-but not poorly enough to be fired. For them, and for their employees have done at least 40 hours in classes. The chairman employers, HR represents a relatively low-risk parking spot. Said, 'Congratulations.' I said, 'You're talking about the activities and they want to be helpful-noble motives that thooughly tick. the HR trade's best-known gura fsee "The Once and Future Con- off some HR thinkers. "When people have come to me and said, sultant," page 48l and a leading proponent of the push to take on 'T want to work with people,' I say, 'Good, go be a social worker,' 's more-strategicroles within corporations. But human resources mansays Amold Kanarick, who has beaded human resources at the agers, he acknowledges, typically undermine that effort by investLimited and, until recently, at Bexr Stearns. "HR isn't about being ing more importance in activities than in outcomes, "You're only a do-gooder, It's about how do you get the best and brightest peo- effective if you add value," Ulrich savy. "That means you're nor ple and raise the value of the firm." measured by what you do but by what you deliver." By that, he refers The really seary news is that the gult between eapabilities and not just to the value delivered to employees and line managers, but job requirements appears to be widening. As business and legal the benefits that accrue to investors and customers, as well. demands on the function intensify, staffers' educational qualifi. So bere's a true story: A talented young marketing exec accepts cations baven't kept pace. In fact, according to a survey by the a job offer with Time Warner out of business school. She interSociety for Human Resource Management(SHRM), a considerably views for openings in several departments-then is told by HR smaller proportion of HR professionals today have some educ2. that only one is interested in her. In fact, she learns later, they tion beyond bachelor's degree than in 1900 . And here's one more slice of telling SHRM data: When HR. Shehad been railroaded intothejob, under thesuper- vision of a widely reviled manager, because no one inside the proiessionals were asked about the worth of various academic company would take it. You make the call: DId HR do its job? On the one hand, it filled the empty alot. "It did what was organizationally expedient, 3 says the wornan now. "Getting someone who wouldn't kick and seream about this role probably made senate to them. But I just felt angry," She leit Time Wamer aiter just a year, [A Time Warner spokesper son declined to comment on the incident.] Part of the problem is that Time Warmer's metries likely will never eatch the real cost of its HR department's action. Human resourcea ean readily provide the number of people it hired, the percentage of performance evaluations completed, and the extent to which employees are satisfied or not with their benefits. But only rarely does it link any of those metrics to business performance. John W. Boudreau, a professor at the University of Southern California's Center for Effective Organizations, likens the failing to shortcomings of the finance function before DuPont figured out how to calculate retum on investment in 1912 . in HR, he says, "we don't have anywhere near that kind of logital sophistication that resource are far less sophisticated, reliable, and consistent." Cardinal Health's Rucci is trying to fix that. Cardinal regularly asks its employees 12 questions designed to mensure engagement. Among them: Do they understand the company's strategy? Do Can your highly trained human-resources protessional do this? Or has he already? they see the connection between that and theirjobs? Are they proud There's a contradiction here, of course: Making exceptions to tell people where they work? Rueci correlates the results to should be exactly what human resources does, all the timethose of a survey of 2,000 customers, as well as monthly sales data not because it's nice for employees, but becsuse it drives the busiand brand-awareness scores. ness. Employers keep their best people by acknowledging and "So I don't know if our HR processes are having in impact" per: rewarding their distinctive performance, not by treating them the se, Rucci says. "But I know absolutely that employee engagement same as everyone else. "If I'm running a business, I can tell you scores have an impact on our business," accounting for between who's really helping to drive the business forward, " says Dennis 1% and 10% of earnings, depending on the business and the Ackley, an employee communication consultant, "HR should employee's role. "Cardinal maynot anytime soon get invited by the have the same view. We should send the message that we value Conference Board to explain our world-elass best practices in any our high-performing employees and we're focused on reward\begin{tabular}{l|l} area of HR-and I couldn't care less. The real question is, Is the & ing and retaining them." \\ business effective and successful?" & Instead, human-resources departments benchmark salaries, \\ function by function and job by jab, against industry standards, \\ HRR isn't working for you. Want to know why & keeping pay-even that of the stars-within a narrow band deter- \\ you go through that assinine performance & mined by competitors. They bounce performance appraisals back \\ appeaisal every year, really? Markle, who admits & to managers who rate their employees too highly, unwilling to \\ to having administered countless numbers of & acknowledge accomplishments that would menit much more than \end{tabular} \begin{tabular}{l} them over the years, is pleased to confirm your suspicions. Com- the 4% companywide increase. \\ panies, he says "are doing it to protect themselves against their Human resources, in other words, forfeits long-term value for \\ \hline \end{tabular} own employees," he says., "They put a piece of paper between you short-term cost efficiency. A simple test: Who does your comand employees, so if you ever have a confrontation, you can go pany's vice president of human resources report to? If it's the the last two generations, government has created an immense who has been there. "A financial person is concerned with takthicket of labor regulations. Equal Employment Opportunity; ing money out of the organization. HR should be concerned with Fair Labor Standards; Oecupational Safety and Health; Family; Rnd Medical Leave, and the ever-popular ERISA. These are pomHR's role as protector of corporate assets-making sure it doesn't in any way. (Tve got to get a better travel agent. } But it is telling, run afoul of the rules. That puts you in the position of saying no a in a hopefal way. Hunter Douglas, a \$2.1 billion manufacturer of \begin{tabular}{l|l|l} \hline broad possibalities, and take amoreopen-minded approach. Youneed & United States to celebrate their acromplishments. \\ to understand where the exceptions to broad policies ean be maden & The company's top brass is on hand. Marvin B. Hopkins, pres. \end{tabular} dardization and uniformity in the face of a workforce that is het- "I feel fantastic about pour achievements," he skys, "Our busi- erogeneous and complex. Amanagerat a largecapital lessing com- ness is about people. Hiring, training, and empathizing with erogeneous and complex. A manager at a large expital lessing com- ness is about people. Hiring, training, and empathizing with vice, president titles there-even though veeps are a dime a dozen leaves, we've failed in some way. People have to feel they bave a in the finance industry. Why? Because in the company's com- place, at the company, a sense of ownership." mercial business, vice president is a rank reserved for the top: So, yeah, it's corporate-speak in a drab exurbsin affice park. But officers. In its drive for bureaucratic "fairness," HR is actually: you know what? The human-resources managers from Tupelo and threatening the reputation, and so the effectiveness, of the com- Dallas are totally pumped up. They've been flown into headquarpany's finance professionals. The urge for one-size-fits-sll, skys one professor who studies: ing Massa Mas on Brondway that afternoon onthe and they're see. the field, "is partly about compliance, but mostly because it's just Can your Hr department say it has the ear of top management? easier." Bureaucrats everywhere abhor exceptions-not just Probably not. "Sometimes," says Ulrich, "line managers just have becsuse they open up the company to charges of biss but beesuse this legacy of HR in their minds, and they can't get rid of it. I felt they require more than rote solutions. They're time consuming and really badly for one HR guy. The chairman wanted someone to expensive to manage. Make one exception, HR fears, and the plan company picnics and manage the unton, and every time this floodgates will open. gay tried to be strategic, he gat shot down." Say what? Execs don't think HR matters? What about all that ment, and commitment. But "the underlying principle was invarihappy talk about employees being theirmost important asset? Well, ably restricted to the improvements of bottom-line performance," that turas out to bave been a small misunderstanding. In the the authors wrote in the resulting book, Strafegic Human Ristare 19909, a group of British academics examined the relationship: Mandenent (Oxford University Press, 1909]. "Even if the rhetotic between what companies (armong them, the UK units of Hewlett- of HRM is soft, the reality is alrast always 'hard,' with the interPackard and Citibank) said about their haman assets and how ests of the orgamization prevailing over those of the individual. they actually behaved. The results were, perhaps, inevitable. In the best of worlds, says London Business Sehool professor In their rhetoric, human-resourees organizations embraced Lynda Gratton, one of the stady's aathors, "the reality should be >> Say the right thing. At the grand level, what HR tells employees thas to match what the company actually believes; empty rhetoric only breeds discontent. And when it comes to the details of pay and benefits, explain clearly what's being done and why. For example, asks consultant Dennis Ackley, "When you have a big deductible, do employees understand you're focusing on big costs? Or do they just think HR is being annoying?' Measure the right thing. Human resources isn't taken seriously by top management because it can't demonstrate its impact on the business. Statistics on hiring. turnower, and training measure activity but not value. So devise measurements that consider impact: When you trained people, did they learn anything that made them better workers? And connect that data to business-performance indicators-such as customer loyalty, quality, employee-replacement costs, and, ultimately. profitability. Get rid of the "social workers." After Libby Sartain arrived as chief people officer at Yahoo, she moved several HR staffers out-some because they didn't have the right functional skills, but mostly because "they were stuck in the old-school way of doing things." Human resources shouldn't be about cutting costs, but it is all about business. The people who work there need to be both technically competent and sophisticated about the company's strategy, competitors, and customers. Serve the business. Human-resources staffers walk a fine line: Employees see them as stooges for management, and management views them as annoying do-gooders representing employees. But "the best employee advocates are the ones who are concemed with advancing organizational and individual performance," says Anthony Rucci of Cardinal Health. Represent management with integrity and honesty-and back employees in the name of improving the company's capability. > integrity and honesty-and back employees in the nar Uriversity of Michigan professor Dave Ulrich, coauthor of The HR Value Proposition (Harvard Business School Press, 2005). says HR folks must create value for four groups: They need to foster competence and commitment among employees, develop the capabilities that allow managers to execute on strategy, help build relationships with customers, and create confidence among investors in the future value of the firm. H and that's why I Idon't like HR