Travails of the “Rejected son”- Transactional Human Resources (HR)

Folks, kinsmen and fiends,

I cry and wail!

I make lamentations of my travails

Laid on me by my mother

The one who, in her care, I am placed.

I might not have been your first

But for long I remained your darling.

And when you were infamous,

I brought you the best of fame.

When you lacked relevance within the organisation

When all your efforts were mere routine

And you earned far less than the epitome of earnings

I, was all you knew!

Alas, the boom arose

All and sundry followed after his fame

He became the most loved in all fields

Everyone loves “strategy”! Oh! everyone does!

Does this massage their ego? I know not!

Would they regard as dumb those that care not about “strategy”?

I have been kept aside, but not left alone

And one of my own, my little brother

Has stolen my fame

Were it for a while, I would have held my peace

But for years, this might linger on

My mother rejecting me day by day

Putting me up for adoption

By those that know me not—Line Managers!

Yea, the ones who have more interest in their version of “strategy”

Than in me, the “rejected son”

- From “Transactional HR” to you [HR Practitioner], my mother!

In a bid to capture the history of Human Resources Management field, I decided to borrow a summarized account from Wikipedia, well laid out in layman’s language:

“Human Resources is a relatively modern management term, coined as late as the 1960s. [1] The origins of the function arose in organisations that introduced 'welfare management' practices and also in those that adopted the principles of 'scientific management'. From these terms emerged a largely administrative management activity, coordinating a range of worker related processes and becoming known, in time, as the 'personnel function'. Human resources progressively became the more usual name for this function, in the first instance in the United States as well as multinational or international corporations, reflecting the adoption of a more quantitative as well as strategic approach to workforce management, demanded by corporate management to gain a competitive advantage, utilizing limited skilled and highly skilled workers.”

From the 1960s up until the end of the 20th Century, the strategic potential of Human Resources Management was not quite discovered. Following the turn-around in the industrial sector where competitive advantage began to lie with human capital rather than financial capital, scholars as well as practitioners started to view the field from a different lens. They realised that if the people that make up the organisation made the difference, our approach to attracting, selecting, developing and retaining these people must be the new competitive advantage.

For those wondering if the “fad” about competitive advantage lying with the organisation’s people is true, my simple explanation to this has been a reference to the automobile industry. In the 1970s and 80s, Peugeot car brands were famous in my part of the world. These were French automobiles known for durability and because the company had greater financial capital than the upcoming Asian car manufacturers, they were able to make more sales. However, one would note that car manufacturers retained the same model of a car brands for many years—design, body-style, features remained the same. All they had to do was to keep their “men at work”, routinely producing the same cars they produced the year before. Research and Development was infamous—and if there was at all, it did not have the zeal to respond to consumer fantasies as at the present. Thus, the “richer” companies won because the consumers in that generation were more contented than us.

Then the tables changed! Consumer aspirations grew. Producers soured while options and alternatives prevailed; and so did the role of Human Resources within organisations—we became relevant; we got invited to making important decisions related to charting the “strategic direction” of organisations. Yet, we are still held back by the responsibilities of our “now-crippled first son”—transactional HR.

Describing transactional HR as a “now-crippled first son” is not to undermine its relevance to Human Resources Management today. However, it is important to note the presence of technology has transformed the way we do transactional HR, otherwise it could be regarded as “crippled” in its original form. The facelift afforded transitional HR through the enablement of technology is the very reason we could opt to put him up for adoption—by Line Managers—albeit, we still struggle with doing this successfully.

A question most often asked is whether Line Managers are ready to take-on the responsibility of our improved transactional HR? Are they ready to use the technological aids to request for new job positions, run shortlists, schedule interviews, conduct competency-based recruitment, carry-out performance agreements and appraisals, conduct performance feedback sessions, simply take full ownership of the transactional spheres of attracting, selecting, developing and retaining talents; while HR practitioners focus on the strategic dimensions of these?

Reflecting on my past experience as a Talent Management Consultant for a leading telecoms company, I had the responsibility of guiding Line Managers through conducting feedback sessions for their direct-reports. One complaint that came out clear could be summarised in the phrase I so often heard: “you are making me do HR work for you! I have my own deadlines. I’ve got my own work”. As true as this may be, Line Managers refuse to be convinced that managing their direct-reports (the ways it is defined by HR—expressed by transactional HR) is actually part of their work. They consider such tasks as developing a marketing strategy, implementing the financial strategy and the various other ways by which we “do strategy” in organisations as the core [and perhaps the whole] of their responsibilities.

As everyone seeks to concentrate on “doing strategy” in their different cubicles within the organisation, the solution perhaps lies in convincing Line Managers that transactional HR is a strategic approach to strategically getting their work done within the various ways through which they contribute to the success of their organisations; for without the right people, success is not guaranteed!