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The CEO of Octopus Energy put HR back in their place; as admin and running people-related functions/operations. That's it. No, fancy titles, no delusional power of "I am in charge of the people", no demanding the seat at the table, no business partner narrative or big speeches of transforming organisations, cultures bla ba bla. He gave them the jobs and titles they were hired to do: run the people-related functions and do those core functions extremely well so the company could run smoothly and in a way that it works for the people. That is the greatest way to help the business and its people. Leave all the nonsense out because if you do those well you solve 99% of your current problems.
But let's be honest here, none of the people functions (attracting, recruitment, onboarding, developing, managing performance, reward, compensation & benefit, compliance etc.) are working well in most organisations. So why is HR claiming the seat at the table and talking about strategic vision and business partnership when they are not able to run the basics of their managed and supervised areas well? They are talking about culture while there is no onboarding of employees, while their recruitment team is ghosting candidates or while there are illegal activities and Health & Safety breaches are happening within their department.
There is no such thing as HR. I have said it before and I will say it again. What you have is specialised people functions with experts running the processes but they have nothing to do with HR.
The CEO acknowledged that, took HR's delusional power away, and directed them back to their core functions. Well done! Finally, someone saw sense! Because if you take things apart HR as such, doesn't exist! What you have is highly specialised core people functions that should be managed by experts (recruitment, talent development, performance management, on and offboarding specialists, compensation & benefits etc.) Instead, there comes this made-up title of HR which is a generalist role trying to do and/or manage all those specialised expert functions. Of course, we are going to end up with dysfunctional core functions when you remove the experts, hire generic HR roles to run these functions and put a generalist on top to manage them. Who in their right mind thought it was a great idea?
HR people were quick to point out that "Octopus Energy has HR, what is the guy going on about?" Well, you are missing the point here.
Of course, you need recruiters, talent development professionals, labour law experts etc. but they have nothing to do with HR. Experts in these roles would never call themselves HR. They don't have to, they actually have expertise. Unfortunately, they are chucked under this role and asked to report to them. Why? If you have expert-led people functions, HR as such disappears and this is what the CEO is saying. He sees that you don't need a generalist overseeing the specialists or doing jobs that require experts really badly with their generic title of Assistant HR manager. It is an unnecessary made-up role. If you need an employment relation expert hire that. If you need a recruitment expert hire that and so on, so, we know what people actually do. Let's be honest, we don't know what HR does. Everything and anything. Expert knowledge and specialisations are respected and valued. Generalist roles, not so much.
HR should be removing this title because this is the cause of all their frustration; we don't know what they do, hence what to expect from them. Specialise people! We know what a payroll officer does and when we need to go to them. We know what the Head of Talent does and what to ask from them. HR constantly complains that everything ends up on their plate but why are they surprised? This is what generalists get. Everything. HR people shouldn't get upset over this guy saying "He doesn't have HR", they should be actively advocating againts this generic job title that causes all their misery. I know a head of HR who was messaged because there was no toilet paper in the loo. They didn't message the head of recruitment. Why not? Because they know what recrutment is in charge of.
Furthermore, titles like Head of HR, CHRO, Head of People, and People & Culture suggest that they are in charge of the people and the culture. No, they are not and we all know that. They know that too because HR folks are quick to point out that "Everyone is in charge of the culture". Okay, so remove it from your title or put it in everyones'.
HR is in charge of the people-related functions and processes, hence the correct title should be Head of People Functions or Head of People Operation (if we want to keep that head title to oversee those functions but it isn't necessary). And this is what the CEO, Greg Jackson recognised, that HR is not in charge of the workforce. He gave people management back to the managers and titled his people function teams according to their actual roles. They are, admin, specialist, and people operations roles as they should be, enabling the organisation to function well by making their job titles specific, focusing them on what they should be doing. They are not in charge of the organisation. They are not business partners (if there was a vague title). They are not more special than other business functions, so chill HR. You don't need to go on about how overwhelmed you are because you are in charge of the people and the most difficult thing is to deal with people. Yes, ask the managers because they are the ones who are dealing with their people 24/7. You are in charge of the processes and the last time I checked that's the easiest to manage so do just that really well.
But what went wrong with HR? Why did they spectacularly fail as a collective? Well, they got power-hungry. They hoarded everything they could to be important. What we have witnessed with HR in the past two decades was the "give me the power" mentality. HR wanted the seat (power) but most couldn't deliver the result.
Last week I had a business dinner where we talked about HR having an identity issue, not being heard, or valued, and that they are genuinely confused about their role. Three men pointed out something to me that I couldn't really argue with. They said that there is no other organisational function that is confused about their role only HR. There is no other function that is disliked so much. There is no other role that is so unsuccessful in what they do or any other function that complains about how hard their jobs are. They also pointed out that HR is predominantly led by women and maybe we are not as good in business as we think. They said that HR is the perfect department to study when it comes to women in business and leadership and not the occasional female CEOs who pop up and be replaced by men 99% of the time.
My brain was like a Google search trying to refute all their claims but I couldn't. People-related KPIs are terrible. HR's reputation is not great. They constantly moan about how hard their lives are and their burnout rate and female senior leaders are almost always replaced by men. So I said, maybe because you men don't see the value of women and don't let them do what they have to do to make HR work. Maybe you don't see the value of HR because it is predominantly led by women! To which they replied, do you think we feel valued or allowed to do what we want? No! But we do it anyway. We find the way. You guys wanted power but you don't have what it takes to deliver results.
I sat there thinking that there was nothing that those men said was wrong (Bigger picture of HR based on employee satisfaction and other KPIs). Now, does that mean that there are no amazing HR people out there doing a fantastic job either at the strategic level or at the admin and people function/operation level? No! But that's the minority and I cannot use the minority to argue against their points.
There are really good strategic senior HR people who transform organisations but they also do that through their processes and specialised functions aligning them with the company's strategic aims and not through all the other power-grabbing nonsense HR people came up with including the "we are in charge of the people". So yes, you can run companies without HR, but you cannot run them without specialised functional experts which seems to have disappeared from organisations and been replaced by generalist HR roles who aren't actually in charge of anything. Companies need experts because they are useful. Replacing them with generic HR roles led us to the state and reputation of HR as we know it today. Maybe it is time to rethink it instead of getting upset by something that is so easy to take apart. There is no strategic HR without functional experts so you can be in any strategic role you want but if you have no capable people to execute that strategy you are not a strategic HR. There is no strategic HR with generalist HR roles, it cannot be.
It's ironic that traditional HR is quick to claim indispensability while lamenting its lack of influence and recognition. Maybe it's time to acknowledge that a streamlined, expert-led approach can do the job better than the broad and often ineffective role HR has tried to play and carve out for itself.
PS: HR is being used and abused by this generic title because organisations can reduce the headcount of their people functions. They are being played and don't even notice it because that "powerful" title of Head of HR/CHRO and so on feels so good to their souls. This title is the cause of the level of incompetence we witness because nobody can be competent in ten different areas.
Latest podcast of Greg Jackson on Not Having HR:
HR Got This So Wrong!
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