Introduction
Not so long ago, in the Human Resource Conference organized by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD), held in September 2007; Sir Gerrard Robinson (former Granada Chief Executive) proclaimed in very few direct words: ?I am not a big fan of HR' and went on to insinuate that HR was ?getting a bit big for its boots'. In the same conference, Greg Dyke (ex-Director General for BBC) commented on HR's functionality by saying, ?HR's job is to facilitate, not lead'. (Harrington, 2007)
These are all familiar statements to an HR professional. Though, Human Resource Management (HRM) has come a long way ? from the early stages of Personnel Administration to the more recent, Strategic HR management; still for reasons unknown, the core business function has never quite accepted HR as a mainstream function like Marketing and Accounting (both of which have difficulty in establishing their credibility). Some have argued the lack of credibility of Accounting, based on occasions when it employed the so-called ?Creative Accounting' spirit of it, which led to numerous disastrous accounting scandals like Enron, and WorldCom. Inspite of all this, Marketing and Accounting always find a place in the board of a company. But why is it that one rarely finds an HR Professional on the board of a company?
Jack Welch, (ex-CEO & Chairman of GE) on the other hand has been quoted as saying: "We spend all our time on people," he says. "The day we screw up the people thing, this company is over." It has been quoted by the famous business advisor, that one of the main reasons a CEO fails, is due to this ?people issue' ? lack of putting the right person to the job and addressing people problems in time. (Charan & Colvin, 1999) This may lead one to ask th ...