Someone had to say this. So I did. If there is one function in an organization that seems to attract criticism from every direction, it is Human Resources.
Employees complain that HR protects management. Management complains that HR spends too much time protecting employees. Candidates accuse HR of ghosting them. Managers complain that HR slows things down with processes and policies. Employees wonder why HR keeps creating rules nobody asked for. And when something goes wrong, whether it’s a conflict, a performance issue, a layoff, or a culture problem, HR often finds itself at the centre of the blame.
It is one of the great paradoxes of corporate life. Almost everybody appears to have a grievance against Human Resources.
Which raises an interesting question.
Is HR really the problem?
Or is HR simply the most visible representative of difficult decisions that organizations have to make?
The answer matters because the criticism directed at HR often reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what the function is actually supposed to do.
For some reason, we have collectively convinced ourselves that HR exists to make employees happy. When employees are unhappy, HR must have failed. When managers are frustrated, HR must be getting in the way. When policies are unpopular, HR must be out of touch.
But that was never the purpose of HR.
The primary role of HR is not happiness.
It is organizational effectiveness.
And those are not always the same thing.
Organizations exist to create value. To do that, they bring together large groups of people with different ambitions, personalities, priorities, and incentives. Those people need to work together, be compensated fairly, be developed, be managed, be held accountable, and occasionally be protected from one another.
That sounds straightforward until you remember that human beings are involved.
People disagree. People misunderstand. People play politics. People carry biases. People have bad days. People have conflicting expectations. And as organizations grow, these complexities multiply.
Somebody has to create systems that allow all of this to function at scale.
That somebody is usually HR.
Which is why the function often finds itself in an impossible position.
Consider the expectations placed upon it. HR is expected to protect the organization while advocating for employees. It must help leaders move quickly while ensuring compliance. It must support business growth while managing costs. It must create consistency while allowing flexibility. It must challenge management when necessary while remaining aligned with business objectives.
In short, Human Resources is expected to balance competing interests that rarely align perfectly.
And when you spend your professional life balancing competing interests, it is almost inevitable that somebody will be unhappy.
Perhaps that is why HR is one of the few functions in an organization that gets criticized both for acting and for not acting.
If HR enforces a policy, it is accused of bureaucracy. If it relaxes a policy, it is accused of inconsistency. If it supports management, employees complain. If it supports employees, management complains.
The reality is that many of the decisions people attribute to HR are not HR decisions at all. They are business decisions.
The decision to freeze hiring is a business decision.
The decision to restructure is a business decision.
The decision to reduce costs is a business decision.
The decision to change work arrangements is a business decision.
HR is often responsible for implementing these decisions, communicating them, and managing their consequences. In many cases, HR becomes the face of choices made elsewhere.
And nobody likes the face of an unpopular decision.
This reality was highlighted recently when Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow made headlines by claiming that many of the company’s problems disappeared after he got rid of the HR department (Click Here). According to Breslow, the company replaced HR with a smaller People Operations function and found that many of the issues previously consuming attention simply vanished.
It’s a wonderful soundbite. It is also worth examining a little more closely.
Because eliminating HR does not eliminate organizational problems.
It simply changes where those problems surface.
Or, in some cases, whether they surface at all.
There is a tongue-in-cheek observation to be made here. Perhaps the problems did disappear. Or perhaps only the reporting of the problems disappeared.
Removing Human Resources is a bit like removing the smoke detectors in a building and then celebrating the absence of fire alarms.
The noise goes away. But that does not necessarily mean the fire does.
Employee grievances do not disappear because HR disappears. Conflicts do not vanish. Performance issues do not magically resolve themselves. Compliance obligations remain stubbornly intact. Workplace misconduct does not cease to exist simply because there is no longer a department dedicated to handling it.
What often disappears is visibility.
The escalation path.
The mechanism through which uncomfortable truths reach leadership.
And while that may create the illusion of fewer problems, illusions have a way of colliding with reality eventually. usually in the form of attrition, litigation, reputational damage, regulatory scrutiny, or a deeply concerned board of directors.
One reason HR is frequently undervalued is that much of its success is invisible.
When Marketing succeeds, people see campaigns.
When Sales succeeds, people see revenue.
When Product succeeds, people see new features.
When HR succeeds, often nothing dramatic happens.
The workplace remains functional. Managers become more effective. Employee relations issues are resolved before they escalate. Risks are identified early. Teams collaborate. Culture remains intact.
The absence of crisis rarely generates applause.
But that absence is often the result of work happening behind the scenes.
This becomes particularly important at a time when organizations are navigating unprecedented levels of change. AI is reshaping jobs. Workforce expectations are evolving. New generations are entering the workplace with different assumptions about careers and leadership. Hybrid work continues to challenge traditional management practices. Regulatory scrutiny is increasing in many parts of the world.
In this environment, the role of HR is becoming more complex, not less.
The organizations that will thrive are not those that eliminate people-related challenges. Such organizations do not exist.
They are the organizations that develop the capability to navigate those challenges effectively.
And that is where good HR creates value.
Not by making everybody happy.
Not by acting as employee activists.
Not by acting as management enforcers.
But by helping organizations function despite the inevitable tensions that arise whenever groups of human beings work together.
Perhaps it is time to stop asking why people hate Human Resources.
A more useful question might be: what was HR actually hired to do?
Because once we answer that honestly, much of the criticism begins to look different.
HR was never hired to be popular.
It was hired to make organizations work.
And that often involves difficult conversations, uncomfortable trade-offs, unpopular decisions, and competing interests.
The irony, of course, is that the people who complain most loudly about HR are often the first to seek its help when things go wrong.
The manager facing a team crisis wants HR.
The employee dealing with an unfair situation wants HR.
The leader navigating a sensitive restructuring wants HR.
The founder trying to scale culture wants HR.
Everybody hates HR.
Until they need HR.
And by then, they are usually confronting exactly the kind of problem HR exists to solve.