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HR bashing, this time from No 10

Elizabeth Divver

Hello everyone

This blog post has collected a lot of attention and comment over the past few days, although nothing I saw until this morning picked up on the swipe (cheap shot?) at HR. You have to scroll down almost to the end to find the comment on HR - it's at the end of the section just above 'how to apply' : https://dominiccummings.com/2020/01/02/two-hands-are-a-lot-were-hiring-data-scientists-project-managers-policy-experts-assorted-weirdos/

I only read it this morning because it was referenced in another blog (https://change-effect.com/). 

We in HR have a terrible image problem. I used to buy into it somewhat myself and it seemed to me that HR seemed to attract low performers. This forum is one of the things that has made me revise that opinion - the typical post on here is from someone trying to do a good job and open to doing it better, even if the responses are sometimes on the critical end of constructive. Also, the people who respond are plainly motivated by wanting to help their virtual colleagues  do the right thing in the right way and are also open to debate and critique of their suggestions. 

I have to say that I'm not that impressed by someone who says he wants the most up-to-date digital thinking citing William Gibson novels. (If you haven't come across them, William Gibson was making a splash writing cyber-punk in the 1990s.)

So why the swipe at HR, which "obviously" needs a bonfire - so obviously that there's nothing supporting the statement as if it stands to reason to all right-thinking people.

Happy New Year.

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  • Dominic Cummings "We want to hire some VERY clever young people either straight out of university or recently out with with extreme curiosity and capacity for hard work." - correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this blatant age discrimination? You can't specify youth on a job advert for god's sake! Looks like someone in HR could have done with reading this job advert before it got posted, not that Cummings cares one jot about UK law...
  • in reply to Rosie
    He would, I'm sure, cite that as an example of the "horrors of HR".

    Why in heaven's name he thinks that the disruptive weirdos he's looking for are going to be reading his blog I have no idea, but I can imagine the looks on the faces of the Special Branch security detachment commanders at Dominic's invitation to free-running Chinese-Cubans with "the KGB" on their CV.

    Seriously, though, I love the fact that Dominic wants some free-thinking disruptors advising No 10, but think he's kidding himself that

    a) they want to work for the Tories
    b) they're going to recommend anything remotely Tory-friendly

    These hip, young, newly-graduated economists he's referring to? They've cut their teeth of Kate Raworth and Christian Felber. First thing they're likely to suggest is abandoning GDP as a measure of national worth, and the Tories are going to recoil from that like a vampire from daylight because it stops them counting the outrageous growth of the finance sector and CEO salaries towards GDP and insists on them measuring things like the economic value of the countryside just before they drive HS2 through the middle of it. It would remove things like defence manufacturing, tobacco and alcohol sales and gambling from the measurement of national living quality. Why, by these measurements, Britain may not even qualify to be in the G20, let alone the G7!

    Nice try, Dominic, but you've aligned yourself with the wrong party if you're looking to get radical thinking into government policy.
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  • in reply to Rosie
    He would, I'm sure, cite that as an example of the "horrors of HR".

    Why in heaven's name he thinks that the disruptive weirdos he's looking for are going to be reading his blog I have no idea, but I can imagine the looks on the faces of the Special Branch security detachment commanders at Dominic's invitation to free-running Chinese-Cubans with "the KGB" on their CV.

    Seriously, though, I love the fact that Dominic wants some free-thinking disruptors advising No 10, but think he's kidding himself that

    a) they want to work for the Tories
    b) they're going to recommend anything remotely Tory-friendly

    These hip, young, newly-graduated economists he's referring to? They've cut their teeth of Kate Raworth and Christian Felber. First thing they're likely to suggest is abandoning GDP as a measure of national worth, and the Tories are going to recoil from that like a vampire from daylight because it stops them counting the outrageous growth of the finance sector and CEO salaries towards GDP and insists on them measuring things like the economic value of the countryside just before they drive HS2 through the middle of it. It would remove things like defence manufacturing, tobacco and alcohol sales and gambling from the measurement of national living quality. Why, by these measurements, Britain may not even qualify to be in the G20, let alone the G7!

    Nice try, Dominic, but you've aligned yourself with the wrong party if you're looking to get radical thinking into government policy.
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