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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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  • As a (currently on career break overseas) Civil Servant (pictured outside of Number 10 in my profile picture), I read Cummings' blog post with interest, along with a lot of the fall out from the political press.

    I can't comment about my political views here at all due to the need to be impartial (and any likes I make in this thread cannot be assumed to be representative of my political views either!!), but it did make interesting reading from a HR perspective.

    I was surprised I hadn't seen any commentary from the HR community about the "obvious" need for a "bonfire" too.

    There is certainly some valid challenges to be made about how we recruit in the Civil Service and whether or not CSHR recruitment processes actually allow for the recruitment of "weirdos and misfits" as Cummings is seeking. It is also true that the Civil Service struggles to attract mathematicians and computer scientists and I know a few have been sufficiently intrigued by Cummings blog post to consider applying, when they would never ever consider a role in the Civil Service normally (my husband did Joint Honours Computer Science and Mathematics at University and he was telling me about how this blog post has been widely discussed in his professional circles, across the political spectrum).

    The discriminatory aspects are of course a little more concerning, as well as the warning about "binning" staff if they don't fit - hopefully someone in Cabinet Office HR will be keeping a close eye on that, otherwise it is highly likely these comments will come back to bite at a later date!

    However, I'm really curious to know how my fellow Civil Service HR colleagues have responded to this. CSHR is actively trying to professionalise, modernise and reduce bureacracy and form-filling, but there's still a huge way to go for it to be a truly responsive and enabling function for the Civil Service.
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  • As a (currently on career break overseas) Civil Servant (pictured outside of Number 10 in my profile picture), I read Cummings' blog post with interest, along with a lot of the fall out from the political press.

    I can't comment about my political views here at all due to the need to be impartial (and any likes I make in this thread cannot be assumed to be representative of my political views either!!), but it did make interesting reading from a HR perspective.

    I was surprised I hadn't seen any commentary from the HR community about the "obvious" need for a "bonfire" too.

    There is certainly some valid challenges to be made about how we recruit in the Civil Service and whether or not CSHR recruitment processes actually allow for the recruitment of "weirdos and misfits" as Cummings is seeking. It is also true that the Civil Service struggles to attract mathematicians and computer scientists and I know a few have been sufficiently intrigued by Cummings blog post to consider applying, when they would never ever consider a role in the Civil Service normally (my husband did Joint Honours Computer Science and Mathematics at University and he was telling me about how this blog post has been widely discussed in his professional circles, across the political spectrum).

    The discriminatory aspects are of course a little more concerning, as well as the warning about "binning" staff if they don't fit - hopefully someone in Cabinet Office HR will be keeping a close eye on that, otherwise it is highly likely these comments will come back to bite at a later date!

    However, I'm really curious to know how my fellow Civil Service HR colleagues have responded to this. CSHR is actively trying to professionalise, modernise and reduce bureacracy and form-filling, but there's still a huge way to go for it to be a truly responsive and enabling function for the Civil Service.
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