Okay, let's be honest. Human resources doesn't always have the best reputation. It can be seen as a pencil pushing function. Making sure that job application forms, benefit enrollment forms, performance appraisal forms, are all completed correctly and on time. It can be seen as a costly administrative function that doesn't make, sell, or deliver anything to customers. And in some organizations, this may be accurate. So you might be thinking, human resources, that's not very interesting. That's not very important. That's not very strategic. In this video I want to try to quickly dispel some of these misconceptions. So first, managing human resources should be important. Work requires people to get done, everybody in any organization needs to be hired, they need to be guided, they need to be evaluated. They need to be paid, sometimes they need to be trained. All of these are key HR functions that managers and human resources professionals need to be involved in. In fact, managing people is important for managers because. >> People join organizations and they absolutely quit managers. >> Now what about strategic? Managing human resources should also be strategic if done well. Human resources serves an organization's missions and goals and those mission goals can not be achieved without the effective deployment of people which is, again, where HR gets involved. So if HR isn't as strategic in your organization, that's a problem not with HR's profession, it's a problem with HR in your organization. It needs to be strategic. Is HR Boring? It shouldn't be, not if done well. HR should be challenging. It should be complex. It should be energizing. So, to illustrate these complexities and challenges, while also showing that HR people can have a sense of humor, let's have some fun with some HR executives. I asked a number of them, if HR was a fruit or a vegetable, what would it be? Think of this as revenge for every silly job interview question you've ever been asked. But I think you'll find their answers to be stimulating. >> If HR was a fruit or vegetable what would it be and why? Maybe grapes because it takes a whole bunch of them and you don't do it all at one time. You can feed one grape at a time to cultivate the learning. >> A pomegranate. I think pomegranates are pretty cool looking. Great color, kind of jazzy in terms of different. They're unique, somewhat, to most people. But they're really hard to get apart and they can be very messy. So just know as you look at the HR space, it's not all what it seems to be. Sometimes I think there's a predisposition to people thinking HR is the fun space, you get to care about people, you're there to be the voice of the employee and you are. But it also gets very messy. >> Blueberry, it's a superfood, right? We help companies grow. >> I'll pick an onion and it's because how people describe onions, right? So you peel them one layer back, one by one. And I really feel like that's the function of HR. That's the practice of HR, that everything is always much more complicated, that there are always two or three more layers that we really need to dig into in order to really get to the root cause of an issue to help make things better. >> Most people would say that HR is like a banana, because it's neutral. And not too tangy and oftentimes we're the mediators between different parts of the organization. >> I would say kiwi, soft on the outside, furry but lots of valuable nutrients on the inside. >> A bit like lettuce, a bit vanilla, a bit no real power, a bit stuck in the middle, a bit squashed in between everybody else. I think actually HR needs to be more like a chili. It needs to add spice and be dynamic and have an opinion and cause something to happen, to change things. >> A pomegranate. Lots of layers, little crunchy, lots of juice and flavor, there's always a lot going on in human resources. >> Contrary to popular beliefs, Human Resources shouldn't be unimportant, administrative, or boring. If done right, it should be important, it should be strategic, and as illustrated by the Human Resources Executives, it should be challenging complex and energizing.
