In my previous post I looked at the “forensic evidence” supporting the case that HR is dead. We found that there’s a growing amount of evidence that HR is far down the path to obsolescence. But that’s not the whole story; so in keeping with our CSI theme, what evidence exists to prove that the HR profession is not dead yet?
1. Most of the Fortune 500 members still have HR departments. Not all of these are great companies, but most have had some success in the past or they wouldn’t be on the list. Most of the best have vibrant HR divisions.
2. Most of the “best places to work” winners have HR departments. I’ve noticed this is true of national, state and local lists of best places to work. Is there a correlation? I think there is a strong relationship.
3. Last time I checked, you could still buy recently published HR books. B&N listed 824 items and Amazon listed 51,914 items (all departments) in response to the query “human resource management” In contrast, B&N lists 6 items for “buggy whips.” (11/15/2009)
4. I googled “accounting” and there were about 23,900,000 hits. I don’t hear anyone arguing that accounting is dead. I googled “human resources” and got 84,500,000 hits. By this “metric” HR is almost 4X more alive than accounting (1. We always knew that! 2. For any accountants reading this, item 4 is a lame attempt at humor.)
5. We are having this discussion. When was the last time you had a passionate discussion about canvas sail makers (or fill in the name of any obsolete profession.)
I could go on, but you get the point. So if HR is not dead, what is going on in the profession? I’ll give you my opinion in the next post.
HRcommons 