Ken wrote:
(snip) Please don't get me started on Human Resource departments.
(snip)
=====================================================================
Ken,
I'd like to join other list members in saying, "Welcome back!" I'm
sorry to hear of your trials and tribulations. I also agree with you
about HR departments. Most of us need them like a hole in the head. Let
me have me a little gripe, then I promise I'll never mention the
subject on this list again! All IMHO, of course, based entirely on my
own observations and expreience.
It has become common for organizations to acknowledge the value of
their employees, and rightly so. In consequence, it has become
fashionable to rename the "Personnel Department" as the "Human
Resources Department" and to "empower" them. However, organizations
that do these things forget one of the golden rules of management: "No
good deed shall go unpunished." They seem blithely unaware that they
are opening the door to empire-building. In many large organizations,
there seems to have been an explosion of bureacracy. They (the HR
departments) seem to have become the opposite of a catalyst, in that
they "Play no part in a process but nevertheless impede its progress":
they can become involved unnecessarily in management decision processes
to which they are unable to contribute anything of substance or value.
The issue here is not one of individual ability of HR personnel but of
politics and power games. The consequences can be wasteful and
time-consuming bureaucratic practices causing increased complexity and
higher costs, complicated and long-winded decision-making processes and
erroneous decisions. The end result is often confusion and frustration
for managment and staff in other departments.
There, that's better!
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