Why We Hate HR

Well, here’s a rockin’ party: a gathering of several hundred midlevel human-resources executives in Las Vegas. (Yo, Wayne Newton! How’s the 401(k)?) They are here, ensconced for two days at faux-glam Caesars Palace, to confer on “strategic HR leadership,” a conceit that sounds, to the lay observer, at once frightening and self-contradictory. If not plain laughable.

Because let’s face it: After close to 20 years of hopeful rhetoric about becoming “strategic partners” with a “seat at the table” where the business decisions that matter are made, most human-resources professionals aren’t nearly there. They have no seat, and the table is locked inside a conference room to which they have no key. HR people are, for most practical purposes, neither strategic nor leaders.

I don’t care for Las Vegas. And if it’s not clear already, I don’t like HR, either, which is why I’m here. The human-resources trade long ago proved itself, at best, a necessary evil — and at worst, a dark bureaucratic force that blindly enforces nonsensical rules, resists creativity, and impedes constructive change. HR is the corporate function with the greatest potential — the key driver, in theory, of business performance — and also the one that most consistently underdelivers. And I am here to find out why.

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