Like many HR bloggers, I field several questions a month about how to get started in HR. When I hear that their primary reason for considering entry into the field is that they really love working with and helping people, I almost universally tell them to reconsider HR as a profession. Look, I love the passion and optimism of people that truly love helping people that enter HR. Soon enough though, they figure out their talents can be better used in other fields.
Let’s get something straight: you definitely have to have empathy for people in this position and enjoy the challenges of working with different people in difficult situations. When you are laying off people with families, bills and good company loyalty, I don’t think you can react any other way. When you are helping a person figure out their payouts and beneficiaries for their life insurance because they have terminal cancer, you have to have the right personality and mindset going into the situation. When you are dealing with some of the more sensitive employee relations areas (discrimination, harassment, etc…), having the right approach can be the difference between success and failure.
I don’t know if “Fuzzy Wuzzy HR” (you know, all of the team building, cry on my shoulder, let’s hold hands and sing kum-ba-ya HR philosophies) was ever very successful but it certainly is going the way of the dinosaurs now. Businesses want savvy, business smart HR people that can also relate to the human side of our profession while still keeping the business solvent. It is a balancing act but businesses are demanding that more emphasis be placed on the business end of things.
The problem? People that love helping people (but are less skilled in other areas of HR) are being pushed out of the profession. What businesses are deciding is that you get a person who may be more skilled in HR but less skilled on the people side and perhaps you can prevent some of the instances where you actually need that super high emotional IQ person. If you can avoid layoffs due to better planning or you can offer better training to managers because you have higher skilled HR people, you can feel better about dropping the people person.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that having a high emotional IQ precludes you from having great HR analytic and leadership skills. In fact, the best HR people I know are strong in all of those areas. But I know that many of those people wouldn’t necessarily say their people skills are the biggest part as to why they are successful.
For people who are considering HR and love helping people, learn about HR and see if anything else intrigues you about the profession. If you are coming up short on that analysis, there are a lot of other ways you can help people in corporate America or elsewhere.
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I tend to agree. Although I consider myself a “people person,” at work, I’m there for a job and basically is to follow the rule of the law (or follow the manual). There are instances where you can follow the spirit of the law for interpretation, but you do need a certain personality to handle it. If you’re a people person, you literally have to leave that personality in your car or house because the job doesn’t entail you have to be a people’s person, you’re there to control the asylum.
Another misconception is that HR is all people. It is certainly as much ‘paper’ as people, especially in the early days. I have seen well intentioned people-person-types flounder and even fail because they aren’t sufficiently detail-oriented. This isn’t to say that you couldn’t find both in one package, of course.
Oh, A freakin’ MEN, for real.
HR is not an “I love people” job. In fact, if you love people, you might get over it after doing this for a while, because you’ll see up close all of the bad, stupid, nasty things people do to each other.
HR is a “help the company be successful” job. If you love helping people, be a teacher, social worker, counselor…there are lots of I-love-people jobs out there. This is not one of them.
P.s., to echo Kerry, if you sincerely want to help people, I have human services jobs available helping people who have developmental disabilities!
Great article and I agree that HR is far more than being a people person. I am a people person (former counselor) but I really grock the finer points of a strong HR component to business. My view of HR is that I work for the benefit of the employer and the employee. This is not an easy task since my company provides a social service and some of the supervisors tend lead with the heart rather than use consistent, fair, equal treatment.
The good news on this front is that I recently took an HR class at the local college and although there were only 8 of us in the class all of the students leaned towards being HR professional rather than trying to support staff as an emotional shoulder to cry on.
Good advice over here! Reality Check(ed)!
I get to hear a lot of the “I’m a people person” when I interview candidates for a role in my team. I like it, but there should be more a candidate can give to the role. I’ll direct those candidates to your post for better understanding of HR.
Lance,
You didn’t specifically post on this issue, but in HR, who has responsibility for people development? It seems that the main focus for HR is on ethics, diversity, benefits, etc., and nobody is taking responsibility for developing employees’ leadership and professional skills.
Excellent post Lance and very thought provoking for current and future HR practitioners. It brings up the issue of whether the workplace is there to emotionally support the needs of it’s employees. And given EAPs (employee assistance programs) have become a commoditized service for most organizations, this separation between the emotional and the transactional state of HR is likely to grow. Maybe this is for another post, but I would be interested in your thoughts on what an employer’s role should be in supporting the “fuzzy wuzzy” needs of the organization.
Very powerful article. 1st time anyone has articulated what many of us have always suspected. — eResumes4Vips
I have a good friend who is the workforce planning manager for a Fortune 500 company. He jokes when people ask him if he went into HR because he’s a people person that he hates people because he went into HR. I’m one of the only people who ever laughs. He gets a lot of uncomfortable stares. I digress.
I’ve never thought it was my job to make people feel good — just to make them feel that they’ve been treated fairly and consistently. That’s what I look for in other HR people — the ability to see both sides of every story and to convey the company’s (sometimes unpopular) position in a way that portrays fair and consistent practice. You almost can’t be fuzzy wuzzy and do that — fuzzy wuzzy is almost never unpopular and really struggles to put a positive or neutral spin on crappy news.
As a 25plus year consultant to management with a focus on coaching and training, I especially appreciate reading your post. What HR really needs to succeed is tough, smart people who can make a place for themselves at the level of the management team, not chaplains in other garb. Thanks again, Lance
I’m actually surprise that there are people out there who think that HR is for “people-lovers” although on reflection, I must say that a lot of my predesessors (1980’s)were from Social Sciences background (they were quite weak with compensation studies as you can imagine, and seemed rather wishy-washy when the going gets tough).
I got into HR rather unplanned. Trained in USA as an engineer and an MBA in the early 80’s, I found my analytical and numeracy skills, attention to detail, strong objectivity, business training and exposure to multi-ethnic environment extremely helpful in the multi-national companies I’d worked for. I don’t consider myself a people person (‘tough’ is more accurate) but I am very customer focused. It was interesting that my colleagues thought that I was highly sociable maybe because I made ice-breaking an important part of any recruitment interviews and promoted of lots of healthy bonding events like Family Days, company trips.
People often expressed surprise when they learnt of my background and in response I’d joked that I believed in HR Engineering. I often tell people that HRMs walk a thin line between management and staff (both are my customers), and need to focus on a favourable outcome for both parties.
Effective succession planning, open communication and having a human heart are important for any organistion that wish to be successful, regardless of the industry, era or technological phase. I was a sounding board to MDs, GMs and managers and a willing ear to employees, and am proud that I never had a single IR case during my watch and had parted friends with employees who had had to go due to performance issues or redundancies. Prior to becoming a HR practitioner, I was in Training & Development and Recruitment which proved helpful in providing a strong emphasis on organisational development and accurate selection throughout my HR career. My subsequent role as a Management Consultant was a natural culmination of my HR experience. So for people out there, HR is indeed a great career if you are cut out for it.
Great post – What we used to say was “if you don’t like people, then go into HR”.
I believe it is ‘less people focused’ these days as the employment relationship has moved to one of a ‘transaction’ – so HR people basically become administers of benefits. Here is an interesting post of HR’s role in the hiring process: http://virtualjobcoach.com/blog/?p=545
Keep it up!
Will at http://www.virtualjobcoach.com
Ahhh… I feel the breath of fresh air!! As someone with several years of corporate HR experience, with an MBA as well as an undergrad in business management – I can so appreciate this post!! Ironically however, being in a Southern, more blue collar, small business metro area – I’ve had to fight the stereo-type of “not” being a people person and actively work to truly partner and not intimidate the rest of the corporate staff as a “female” who isn’t as concerned as much about making employees feel good, but prioritizes making proactive, effective, efficient and financially sound business decisions… (shocking!) which DOES include tending to the needs of the employees, keeping them engaged, etc… and I too have always drawn the parallel with my peers as well as my employees, that HR professionals should understand the fine line they walk and be able to *successfully* balance their responsibilities to both the company as well as to the employee…. Good Stuff Lance!
@Josh: Managers should have the responsibility for employee development. Unfortunately, three things prevent this from happening:
1. The manager is not empowered enough to fill this role, and/or
2. The company is already crapping on the employee (poor compensation, poor work environment, poor employee/supervisor relationships) so any company drive to improve the employee as a person is hypocritical and so much hot air, and everyone knows it, so it doesn’t happen, and/or
3. The company truly doesn’t care about anything except the employee doing exactly what they were hired for, and not rocking the boat.
Managers faced with any of these 3 scenarios eventually lose their ability to develop their employees as they realize their job is more “taskmaster” than “manager.”
I’ve found that companies get to decide what their HR departments look like and what role they take on. Some choose a more nuts and bolts approach while others emphasize supporting people. There’s no right or wrong it’s just that each approach leads in a different direction. If your HR department is in place to support and help your employees grow it will have predictable results on your workplace functioning if it is set up to enforce policies and procedures it leads in a different direction.
Each company has a different feel. I’ve found that companies can be very successful while supporting their employees in touchy-feely ways as well as those who see them as statistics. There is, however, one of these perspectives that leads to far more innovation and growth. I’ll let your readers decide which one.
Great post and I agree wholeheartedly.
If you break HR down it is “human” + “resources”. While I wouldn’t put them in the same category as pens and PCs, people are a resource to be managed so the business can run optimally.
Beyond the technical side (policies n procedures etc) a good HR Manager is able to help get the people resources focused on business outcomes, mainly through working with management.
People who whine at work are surprised when I tell them I don’t want to hear it and go speak t0 their manager. I usually get “But you’re HR!!!! Aren’t you supposed to help people.” To which I usually respond: “I am, just not the way you expect me to. Have a nice day!”
This is really a great article. And some really great comments following the article. I’ve been in HR management for over three decades, and I sincerely love the job. One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is that there seems to be a high portion of HR professionals who are incompetent doing the job. They create more problems than they resolve. I expect that the only reason they hold on to an HR job is because who they report to has very little idea what HR success or HR best practices look like. As a volunteer for the local SHRM Chapter, I noticed the membership was very mobile, and a large portion were in a different job from year to year. So I suspect that finding the right HR fit for an organization is sometimes difficult. It is very true that HR must be all things to all people, and that is a fine line. Everyone is a customer.
At the outset though any HR will agree that being in HR is in being in a position to help people, if we sit back and tickle yourself to think you will have the real picture before you.
If we look at HR as a part of a bigger picture then we will realize what we do. HR is a enabling activity towards carrying out the business successfully. The very existence of HR is because of the existing business. So what goes before ‘helping people’ / ‘being friendly to people’ / ‘being considerate’ is to sustain the business in hard times.
Hence when tough decisions are taken to retrench 10% of the employees we need to look at the bigger picture of the 90% that are still continuing.
Recently when we had to retrench a few people, I had given them an assurance that I will provide support in terms of finding a job for our the retrenched employees & also by assuring them to give an excellent reference to their future employers whenever it is required. There by I delivered by job to my employer as well as balanced my relationship / helpfulness to my employees…
afterall HR is a game of Balance
I think as in all professions you will find the spectrum. In HR perhaps the same. Those there punching a time clock, “is it 5pm yet?” to those that have a lot of passion and really care.
I have been lucky enough to work with those that really care it shows. When I am at the client I see how well the HR people get along with the staff and the body language is very relaxed and positive.
I have called upon prospects (who rapidly became “un” prosepects) where the exact opposite was going on and I couldn’t wait to get out of their offices
Larry Kaminer
HR, who needs em? I just pray to The Job Gods: http://www.thejobgods.com.
LOL