Who does HR work for? Who is HR accountable to? Who does HR report to? Who does HR report a whistle-blower complaint to? Is your answer the same for all of these questions? Add to that a polarizing workplace where wearing PPE has become synonymous with putting a political bumper sticker on your face rather than your car, and the lack of authoritative HR common ground should be concerning to all. Part of what makes these questions fascinating or intimidating, depending on your point of view, is the realization of just how much the answers vary around the world. You don’t find this level of dispersion in professions like medicine, law, finance or … well heck, you don’t find this level of dispersion in any other type of profession – period.
We feel that HR, as a profession, is at tipping point. Many of the type of people who once ‘fell into HR’ are – because of so many unprecedented precedents – now ‘falling out of it’. Depending on your point of view this flight to the exits can be a good thing, or a bad thing. For what it’s worth, we feel it’s a good thing because part of what defines the character of a profession is how people behave not when times are good, but when times are challenging. Then again you may have an alternative fact that might change our opinion. Do tell?