“Remove 90% of HR tomorrow, and the business would run smoother, faster, and happier,” that’s what a recent tweet from Amanda Goodall explained, and many appear to agree with the sentiment. It’s easy to pick sides and express agreement or parallel frustrations with HR today, as many have come to see it as the department that actively works against your interests. The viral HR debate parrots many common ideas about the role of HR within the organization and the idea that they perform tasks that are of little value to the organization as a whole.
With businesses also revealing their desire to abandon HR teams for AI technology over the next few years, there is more than enough controversy to add fuel to the fire. Rather than tear down the workforce strategist’s HR tweet, it is important to ask ourselves why the role and reputation of HR has such a bad rep, despite all employees working for the company and not the individual.
A viral tweet encouraging businesses to remove 90% of HR for smoother operations has us revisiting the role of HR in the workplace. (Image: Pexels)
Should Businesses Remove 90% of HR for Smoother Operations? Exploring the Role of HR in the Modern Workplace
The Human Resources department was once considered the protector of worker interests, present in the organization to solely serve the needs of the workforce and act as the mediator between employers and employees. For a few brief years, HR departments held key decision-making powers to ensure that workers were represented in all conversations, and as the Amanda Goodall tweet on HR indicates, they are still invited to these meetings with some regularity.
Much like the “goody two-shoes” characters in every high school movie ever made, the identity of HR has evolved to the role of serving as the butt of a joke or two. HR’s representation in the media has not helped its case. In most instances where HR is brought up, they’re showcased as naysayers who dissuade employees from taking action, choosing to protect company interests over employee well-being.
Toby from The Office may be one of the worst examples to bring up in a conversation on whether to fire 90% of HR, but it is true that despite his attempts to unite the workers and avoid reporting their many, many infractions, his presence was truly never welcome from the start. The idea of HR being the enemy is one that has been repeated time and again, some from personal experiences, and others from what HR now represents.
Corporate Culture Has Changed HR’s Role at the Table
Over the years, the roles and responsibilities of HR have evolved. Rather than being tasked with making key decisions on workforce operations, most are assigned to handling the delicate conversations instead, often ones that center on bad news. Instead of making policies that cater to worker interests, many are solely invited to the conversation to discuss how the reaction to central policies can be curbed.
Rather than represent the interests of the workers, corporate culture has reassigned HR to be the internal face of the company, representing every controversial policy that the company might make. HR jobs are jobs like any other, and there is only so much room for negotiations. Audacious, ambitious HR workers may be able to create and share groundbreaking employee well-being policies with employers, but the final decision on enforcement and execution still falls to corporate leaders.
It might be easy to presume that the elimination of HR teams will result in the elimination of controversial company policies, but the practices that govern the workplace aren’t going away. A business determined to cut costs will likely turn to AI tools to create estimates of how many workers they need to cut and which employees will be easiest to let go of. Another organization that is determined to have workers in the office to ensure teamwork and productivity will still release a memo announcing the return to the office.
The Reality of HR as a Compliance and Risk Manager
Many organizations could afford to remove 90% of HR, but the functions they perform will only be reassigned more haphazardly to managers, corporate leaders, and AI. One thing that many do get right about HR is the department’s role in compliance consideration and risk management. Most organizations view the HR department as a stopgap solution to conflict in the workplace. Unfortunately, rather than allowing them freedom to address, resolve, and forestall future conflict, most organizations require HR to merely ensure it does not escalate.
The HR role also extends beyond employee supervision today. With every passing day, new state and federal regulations make an appearance. While some degree of the burden of compliance does fall to legal teams, most organizations turn to their HR departments to ensure that pay is adjusted, ADA accommodations are made, and there is general adherence to the letter of the law. These systems are not fully formalized internally either, and as a result, the compliance is oftentimes left to managers and workers to interpret, resulting in situations where lawsuits become a possibility.
This shift in the HR role is not self-determined. Most workers who have spent years preparing for the role take great pride in managing the workforce with policies that reach genuine resolutions and create support systems for workers. Shifting advancements in worker well-being, paid leave policies, achievement recognition, and other benefits within the workplace are regularly championed by HR teams who are often expected to reconsider in favor of profit margins and productivity goals.
As the HR Corporate Culture Debate Heats Up, It May Be Time to Revisit the Actual Role of HR
The identity and role of HR have changed. Despite a desire to see HR teams play the role of company psychologists, most are hired for specific tasks that center on compliance and management. The work of HR begins from the hiring to the firing of an employee, most of which is conducted on the basis of predetermined criteria. The expectations from HR are no longer emotional, as the majority of the work involves technical tasks.
The actual role of HR in the workplace is hard to quantify when their positive results are not as discussed as the negative decisions that are channeled through them. Managing payrolls, investigating absenteeism, revising company policies, communicating employer interests, enforcing rules and regulations, assessing the impact of external regulations on the business, addressing employee concerns, and the list goes on. These tasks are clinical in nature, and the most discerning HR workers are what business leaders look for while hiring.
This evolution of HR responsibility is precisely why companies believe that AI tools may be able to take over their responsibilities. Most organizations prefer an HR worker who can look out for business interests, and shifting to tools and technology can better guarantee that the decisions will be made solely on fiscally responsible grounds. This could ultimately open a business up to more cultural pushback, but that is expected to be the natural outcome of removing 90% of HR.
Employee Frustrations Can Be Linked to the State of the Modern Workplace
The large majority of the frustrations that workers have expressed in the viral HR debate are concerns that pertain to corporate culture overall. HR teams currently play the role of a shield wall in diffusing some of the pushback before it reaches the top, but the tensions within the workplace are evident. Workers are tired, frustrated, scared, isolated, and generally dissatisfied with how businesses operate today, unable to find the harmony and stability they were promised.
This leads to conversations around HR redundancy, further employers in their own agenda of most employees themselves being redundant to the workplace. This may temporarily benefit the business while workers turn their ire elsewhere, but furthering this discord and allowing HR to play the role of the enemy does not benefit an organization in the long run.
Rather than trusting their HR teams with their concerns and actually receiving assurance that they will be addressed, workers often suppress them, spread rumors, engage in arguments with each other, and generally mistrust the organization. The sexism and casual discriminatory language seen in response to the workforce strategist’s HR tweet also showcase the attitudes that many workers enter the workplace with.
Reinforcing the Role of HR as the Enemy Only Hurts Businesses In Subtle Ways
Union-led movements showcase workers’ desire for unity, and if this cannot be found internally, they are left to take their anger elsewhere. Many turn to legal recourse because of their certainty that matters will not be handled appropriately by the organization. Redefining the HR role within a business is essential to rewrite the current narrative. Companies could choose to remove 90% of their HR teams or the entire department entirely, but the underlying problems will remain.
From greater freedom to greater accountability, identifying the purpose of HR and ensuring the conditions are right for them to perform their roles is the only way to address the corporate culture debate in a way that truly addresses the central concerns and issues that are at play.
Do you agree that businesses should remove 90% of HR? Share your thoughts on the role of the Human Resources department and the viral HR debate with us in the comments. Subscribe to The HR Digest for more insights on workplace trends, layoffs, and what to expect with the advent of AI.
