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LettersThe HR profession

Explain what HR does and it will all fall into place

by Personnel Today 14 Nov 2006
by Personnel Today 14 Nov 2006

No wonder we have an image problem. One of the biggest barriers, as I see it, is the lack of publicising to the organisation the role of HR, as opposed to personnel.


Some organisations use the terms interchangeably, and use HR people to do what is basically personnel work, which is not why the terminology changed in the first place. Even managing directors do not always understand the difference.


The other difficulty HR people find is that we are very often cutting across line management’s ways of doing things so that we can achieve fairness and consistency. Of course, many line managers don’t like to be challenged – it smacks of interference to many rather than support.


We need to talk with the rest of the organisation to ensure that everyone is clear about what we do.


Barbara Blamires
Director of HR and development, Trinity Hospice

Personnel Today
Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

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Personnel Today
  • Home
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