Traditionally, the HR department, in general, and the
HR functions, in particular were insulated from the concept
of measurement, as the HR department was not seen as a revenue
center. How this perception and consequently the insulation of the
HR department that came about is debatable. However, if one were to
look into this debate, there is a possibility that one can identify a few
significant streams of thoughts that have contributed towards
forming this non-quantitative perception about the HR department. Some
of these are discussed here.
To begin with, it is believed that HR primarily deals with
intangibles and, therefore, the related question that arises is, how can one
possibly measure something which is intangible. The line of argument
adopted and put forth to defend the stance of immeasurability of
intangibles in extreme cases could run something like this: how can one
measure the love and affection of a mother towards her children?
The idea that was being projected was that it is, not only difficult to
measure something which is inherently intangible, but it is also
not right to do so.
Another possible reason could be non-quantitative initiation
and orientation of HR practitioners who were more than willing to
accept and take shelter in the immeasurability of intangible
hypothesis. Beginning with the HR education, either through
MBA courses or other HR professional courses, most of these courses do
not have a quantitative orientation. Due to this reason, it is
commonly observed in business schools offering HR specialization that
students who tend to hate or fear numbers take up HR specialization. This
may not be the sole reason for opting for HR specialization, but certainly
is one of the reasons for many students taking up this specialization.
This lack of affinity for numbers gets translated into an attitude
adopted by HR professionals which literally translates into something like
"we deal with people". This is again reflected in the workplace
practices of HR department, as compared to the other departments. |