‘A surprising number of people think HR is about making the world of work a friendlier, more inclusive place’
Human resources has become one of the fastest-growing professions in Britain, outnumbering both doctors and lawyers.
The British Labour Force Survey reveals a 68-percent increase in HR professionals since 2010, with 476,000 now employed in the field—1.45 percent of the UK workforce, a proportion exceeded only by the Netherlands among Western nations, according to a recent article by Harry Wallop of The Times looking at what's behind the surge in HR.
Even small businesses now have dedicated HR staff, says Peter Cheese, chief executive of the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD): “HR executives have faced testing times in recent years, first with organising staff to work from home during the COVID lockdowns, then with demands from employees to work more flexibly once they were called back to the office.”
This surge reflects a dramatic shift in HR’s role. Once focused on hiring and payroll, HR now oversees workplace culture, compliance, and employee wellbeing, according to Wallop.
Employment law and HR
He reports that the Equality Act of 2010, which codified protections for characteristics like age, disability, and religion, has fuelled a boom in workplace training and policy-making.
And the number of employment tribunals numbered 42,000 last year in the U.K.
The volume of tribunals is not the result of more complex law but partly because “employees are more educated, more aware of their rights. So they look stuff up on Google and they will find they’re entitled to certain employment law rights,” John Hayes, the managing partner of Constantine Law, which specialises in employment law, says in The Times article.
“Most of the Equality Act was essentially a codification and consolidation of existing anti-discrimination law in this country — not much of it was new law.”
Former civil servant Pamela Dow, who has been involved in learning and development, tells Wallop that it should not be the employer’s role to offer therapies to alleviate mental health problems; however, many do so because they fear they may be sued by a worker.
“The chilling effect of the Equality Act and its lazy definitions is that if your employer fails to offer you something for your ‘protected characteristic’ — from blindness to self-diagnosed adult-onset ADHD — you can take that employer to an employment tribunal,” she says.
Proliferation of HR-led training
The growth of HR has sparked debate over its true mission, according to Tanya de Grunwald, host of the podcast “This Isn’t Working,” in talking to The Times.
“There seems to be a fundamental confusion — and this includes those within the CIPD — about what HR is for. A surprising number of people think HR is about making the world of work a friendlier, more inclusive place. They’ve lost sight of the fact that they work for the organisation that employs them — it’s actually all about productivity.”
Dow also told the Times that the proliferation of HR-led training might be undermining productivity: “At worst, spending time on these conversations is decadent and indulgent, and it is taking people away from their jobs. I don’t think that’s a wild leap.”
HR ‘driving supportive cultures’
But Cheese says it’s not fair to single out one department for lower productivity.
“While various reasons have been put forward for the U.K.’s relatively low and stagnant productivity, including poor management and leadership, the most important factors we believe are lack of investment and short-termism.”
Cheese told The Times that HR is vital for “driving supportive cultures that help attract and retain the breadth of experience and talent needed, and to address issues of discrimination and harassment that continue to be too prevalent, and are underpinned by law.”
Nearly 85% of large U.S. employers offer workplace wellness programs, yet burnout and mental health needs have continued to escalate, according to researchers in a Harvard Business Review article.
They argue — based on a systematic review of recent research in this area — that the lack of impact of well-being programs is explained in part by a focus on the individual employee rather than the systems that affect them.
