Is HR loosing it's Human Touch ?

Some interesting thoughts on what People think about Human Resources.

Genuine Curiosity questions “How human is your Human Resource “?

The HR folks provided lots of value in hiring and coaching. They also helped talk me through difficult situations. I'm lucky enough to work in a small company now, where I get a lot of this kind of assistance, but in large companies that is harder and harder to come by.

In my last "big" company experience, our company grew to the point where HR was one local person who basically dealt with coordinating insurance forms, paperwork associated with hiring and firing, and proofreading personnel reviews. They didn't feel like a partner any more - just an information desk.

Mind Unbound has some thoughts too..

“Human resources departments should be engaged in supporting employees in their own humanity. They should be about reinventing corporate culture to fit the whole human being, creating fun environments of creativity, innovation, job satisfaction, and personal encouragement. If that sounds too far-fetched, it's only because most HR departments have been trapped by their own "professional," impersonal, unfeeling culture for far too long. It's time they stuck their necks out of their proverbial ivory towers and took a good look around.

It shouldn't be so tough, really. After all, HR employees are people too. All they have to do is think about what kind of company they'd really love to work in--as opposed to the robotic, bureaucratic monstrosity they feel trapped in today--and then realize that the power to make those very changes lies in their own, wonderfully human hands.

Some of the thoughts truly reflect the typical dilemmas faced by HR in large Organization where scaling up to huge number of resources is a big challenge for HR. Typically organizations resort to automation of process to streamline process and to develop matrix on actually tracking HR effectives and effort on various activities.

It’s quite true that HR in small organizations is highly personalized and has the Touch and feel effect, but systems and processes bring some new dimensions and to a great extent reduce the Human Interaction.

The key here is to maintain a mix of both automation and personal touch as the day to day operational stuff can be managed with HRIS tools but certainly when it comes make the HR impact nothing works as much as Human Touch.