“HR is not for wimps.”
Context
The HR function is being questioned like never before. In a Financial Times column published on Monday, Pilita Clark, an associate editor and business columnist at the newspaper, reflected on the paradoxical position HR professionals now find themselves in: often disliked by employees, distrusted by executives and now facing scrutiny over the real-world impact of their work.
Drawing on comments from Johnny C. Taylor Jr, president of the US-based Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Clark portrayed a profession caught in the crosshairs. Taylor reportedly said his profession must do more to demonstrate its strategic value, particularly in a post-pandemic world shaped by hybrid work, workforce wellbeing schemes and evolving diversity policies.
Meaning
HR’s critics are not new, but Clark noted the intensity of reader backlash to an FT article questioning whether HR still needs humans in the age of AI. Some commenters branded HR staff “incompetent” and “two-faced snakes”, while others argued the function has long been more loyal to company management than employee welfare.
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Yet the article also suggested that HR’s attempts to champion wellbeing, diversity and flexible work may be grating on CEOs who want harder evidence of business impact. Taylor told Clark there is still scepticism at the top: “We say companies that are more diverse do better. We have no real basis for that; we absolutely don’t.” He also questioned whether initiatives like sabbaticals or hybrid work have proven value for performance.
Meanwhile, employee engagement — a staple of HR strategy for more than two decades — remains plagued by inconsistent definitions and unreliable metrics.
Implications
Clark concluded that HR is uniquely exposed to criticism from all directions: staff see it as an arm of management; management doubts its strategic value; and now AI threatens to replace parts of it altogether.
In the US, this scrutiny has been intensified by political changes. Following the Supreme Court’s decision to limit affirmative action in university admissions, SHRM itself removed the “equity” component from its own DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies. According to Clark, the organisation’s move stunned some of its members but reflects the cautious stance now being taken in corporate circles.
While Clark acknowledged that robots may be able to perform parts of the HR role, she made a compelling case for keeping humans in human resources, particularly as AI’s influence on the workforce accelerates. But she insists that HR needs to do a better job of proving it belongs in the boardroom and deserves the trust of the workforce.
