The debate on whether diversity should be taken out of human resources was taken one step further at the Employers Forum on Age awards lunch yesterday.
Now HR practitioners are calling for, wait for it... HR to be taken out of HR.
The subject came up when HR and diversity senior managers were discussing how HR can be seen as being more 'in tune' with business-wide concerns, rather than being accused of having a narrow vision.
HR should be taken out of HR, to give it more credibility and equal weight with core business functions such as IT and finance, according to one equality manager.
So what does this actually mean? Is it simply the name of 'HR' itself that is causing people to want to remove HR from HR, or is it a deeper-thought scheme where literally, HR managers and directors should somehow form a different function, perhaps located in different parts of the business to prove to senior managers what they are capable of?
The mind-boggling - and wine-fuelled - discussions of HR vs HR vs diversity vs HR again took place at the EFA's award lunch, where public and private sector companies were brought together to celebrate success in age diversity.
EFA is the first ever employer led initiative to promote the business benefits of an age diverse workforce. Awards up for grabs included age diversity in recruitment, retention and reward, retirement and employee engagement - all winners and shortlisted companies can be viewed at www.efa.org.uk/goodpractice
There wasn't an award for 'best far-fetched discussion when you get HR people together' - but I reckon the call for HR to be taken out of HR takes the biscuit.
