Hmm. A few things to ponder.

Firstly, I'll point out that the article is bang on when it's referring to recruitment HR.

HR recruitment specialists tend to be the haemorrhoid on the butt of corporate Australia. My contempt for the vast majority of them is palpable.

As for the rest of HR, I can admit, I don't really know, but logic dictates that in large companies there must be a requirement for efficient use of, well, for lack of another term, 'human resources'.

Thus, I would view HR in some form or another, as a kind of necessity. In large companies, somebody has to figure out how to best assign roles, facilitate communication and reduce duplication of roles. These aren't merely fancy words. They are very real requirements.

However, my suspicion is that given the nature of man and the nature of evolving communications, coupled with the inherent drive of any given profession to feather its own nest, that ultimately, HR departments tend to become bloated and self serving. When we are discussing an issue as vague as the value of people and their productivity and contributions, it is inevitable that a certain amount of... (well, there's only one word that encompasses this adequately) bullsh!t, will spread.
The surest sign of this is the use of specialised language, which allows the profession in question to claim a special status as wise practitioners of an art that can't be understood by the masses, thereby ensuring their relevance.

(For further examples, see certain elements of the legal profession).

At the end of the day, some HR departments will serve their company well, however I think this isn't true of most, though that last point is more a general opinion than anything concrete. I certainly think most HR recruitment specialists tend to be charlatans.

No-one gets HR as well as Scott Adams

http://www.dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/000000/10000/5000/100/15135/15135.strip.gif

http://www.dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/000000/10000/5000/100/15130/15130.strip.gif

I am sure that out there somewhere there are excellent HR agencies and departments, because I am an optimist.

BN wrote:
"Contact AHRI and find out who the good employers are and try with them before ranting with generalisations like this."

AHRI are part of the problem. AHRI is the source of much of the buzzwords and waffle that (some) HR people spout. The author of the original article talks about HR being a parasite - AHRI's existence is 100% parasitic!

Pelican wrote:
"The recruitment industry is characterised generally by under-staffed, overworked consultants who job is to get bums on seats rather than find real jobs for real people."

Since when was the recruitment industry supposed to "find real jobs for real people" ? It's not the CES! A recruiter's job is to find the best candidates for their client (the employer).

"... The surest sign of this is the use of specialised language, which allows the profession in question to claim a special status as wise practitioners of an art that can't be understood by the masses, thereby ensuring their relevance."

I agree with this statement. It's the oracle syndrome: that all organisations have to do is consult 'the wise oracle' and all problems will be magically fixed. Not so. The best way to solve problems is to totally open things up to scrutiny and let as many people as possible get involved to solve them. Where I work we have a corporate database called ORACLE. The problem with it is hardly anyone knows what's in it. As one wag has said on more than one occasion, the only way to access the database is to consult the oracle. Some database!

'As for the rest of HR, I can admit, I don't really know ...'

A wise person would have ended the comment there.

Any system that refers to people as 'human resources' has insurmountable credibility problems.

How does that Barbara Streisand song go? ...
Human resources
Who need human resources
Are the luckiest human resources in the world'
not.