Most employees don’t care about HR, at least not until they have an issue they need to resolve. It’s not that people feel strongly against human resources, it’s just that they don’t see how it contributes to their day-to-day job.
The reason human resources teams struggle to stay relevant is that they are wedded to process, stuck in the comfort support tasks like coordinating interviews, overseeing shared services, and dealing with simple ad-hoc requests. These functions are all crucial, but they don’t contribute to productivity, or to a hit marketing campaign, or to sales, or to any of the metrics by which the business measures its success.
To reclaim its relevance, HR must accept that its role has evolved and be ready to change.