Human Resources

Overview

The HR function of popular mythology is staffed by short-sighted bureaucrats bogged down in inventing ever more labyrinthine rules: more Stasi than strategy. As in any myth, there is an element of truth in this. While publicly upholding the view that ‘people are our greatest asset', it is a rare organization that puts its HR function on equal footing with operations, sales or marketing. Like IT managers, HR managers typically find themselves falling between two stools. These two groups are guardians of an organization's most important assets - its people or technology - but they are also under constant pressure to minimize the costs of that asset. HR managers are responsible for overseeing compliance to an increasingly heavy burden of regulation, but they are also expected to be flexible and responsive. While they are in the forefront when it comes to reshaping organizations through mergers, acquisitions, outsourcing and offshoring, budget cuts often force them on to the defensive when it comes to developing and motivating individuals.

Squaring these circles is not easy but it is critical to success, as the case studies in this chapter demonstrate. The Apache Corporation characterizes itself as having a sense of urgency: ‘We get things done.' That attribute was tested to the limit when the oil company acquired BP's interest in the Forties oilfield in the North Sea. Cultural differences between the two oil companies, as well as a host of regulatory issues, could have lengthened the integration process and threatened Apache's aim of increasing efficiency. Instead, the whole process was completed in just six weeks.

Evotec OAI is a newly formed drug discovery company, formed from the merger of two other companies. Losing staff almost as fast as it was recruiting them, the company needed to look beyond conventional thinking on retention. At the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD), scale was the biggest potential stumbling block - how to set up a service capable of preparing around 14,000 service men and women annually for new careers in civilian life.

While vastly different in focus, these projects show just how hard HR managers are working to change people's perceptions of their role.