The Cool Three Faces of Human Resources, the First is a Complex Beauty.
Photo credit: CACTUS Creative Studio
When I completed my undergraduate studies in commerce, a business degree, my specialization at the time was called industrial relations management. What that meant or what that was supposed to be (other than accounting or finance or marketing) was supposed to be the HR stuff.
My first job was where I saw what HR really was. The first time that I heard someone say ‘Hack’ HR or ‘Redefine HR’, I remember being confused and also somewhat irritated. The reason is that there are three faces of HR.
The first face of HR is humans. We’re all HR. We are all humans who get up every day, who in some way, shape, or form are doing some sort of work. To me, this includes being a full-time parent, an entrepreneur, or working at an organization.
The second face of HR are the HR professionals - those like me, my people. The second face are the folks that support organizations or people in specific areas of human resources management.
The third face is HR as the field itself, and the disciplines that make up HR. In this case, I'm talking about the terminology we hear nowadays around the employee experience, the journey that an individual, a human, or a human resource will have when they join or are about to join working for a group of people, an organization, or a community. This face of the HR discipline embodies skills such as recruitment, orientation onboarding, talent development, performance evaluations, goal setting, and exit interviews.
It’s important to have these distinctions. Why? Because in the work that I do, I have found wonderful and highly intelligent clients being confused about what exactly HR is versus other disciplines that appear to be connected. They are right; it’s all connected. We just need to be clear about what discipline or area of human-related work we’re talking about, as well as our intentions.
Other kinds of ‘human-related work’ are in specific disciplines or fields of study, such as psychology or organizational behaviour - which is how folks work together, and organizational development - which is change stuff that's being implemented in the workplace, and the big one organizational culture.
Like me, the humans I have worked with have struggled in trying to figure this stuff. Ultimately, human-related work is all connected. It is far easier to determine our next steps when we start from a place of intention when it comes to HR, HR Professionals, or HR work itself. For example, if HR’s intention is to fill a vacancy, then we are talking about recruitment. If a manager or entrepreneur is preparing for a strategic planning session, we may be talking about organizational behaviour or development.
I believe that it's complex, because there are systems within systems. Human Resources as a field of work is a system that starts from a recruitment poster, to onboarding, to developing. Organizational development is also a system containing processes and requiring planning to change something in an organization.
I think the biggest part that makes all of this complex is us, the humans. We are beautifully complex, and to me, that's the biggest part that we’re trying to figure out in our workplaces. How can we bring our whole-selves to work? How can we feel connected, feel supported, feel like we belong?
I think that's why I get irritated when I hear ‘Hack HR’ or ‘Redefine HR’- it sounds like I’m not trying to be or do better. It’s in our DNA to evolve, to change, to grow, so I get offended when one’s mindset is of ‘hacking’ HR (humans), HR (the HR professionals), or HR (the field). I don’t see any other field saying this about themselves. Have you ever seen ‘Hack Finance’, or ‘Hack Marketing’? No you haven’t. These people are just working and figuring out what needs to be changed, what works well, and how things can be even better.
I don't want to be ‘hacked’ as an HR person or as a human being in a workplace. I want to be elevated. I want to be supported. And yes, on occasion, I want to be called out for my sh*t. But I don't want to be ‘hacked’. Leave that for the other industries.
