Bravo Orme: HR’s half-empty glass is becoming a bad habit

How refreshing to hear new Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development chief executive Jackie Orme vocalise what I have thought for some considerable time – that the HR profession should stop berating itself and spending too much time on trying to prove its worth (‘Orme: my results will speak for themselves’, Personnel Today, 10 June).

I get so bored and frustrated reading articles about HR being at a ‘low ebb’ and needing to be more ‘in tune with the business’. There is such a thing as talking yourself into a mindset and state of being and it appears to me that there are too many people out there willing to steer the profession down this dead-end track.

We need to take responsibility for our own reputation and not allow those with a ‘glass half empty’ viewpoint to dictate how we are perceived as an essential business function.

To quote William Wordsworth: “Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting herd”. While it is hugely beneficial to reflect, HR needs to be careful that it doesn’t continue with this cyclical habit of putting itself down.

Jean Gerrard

Business development manager,

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