HR balancing act - business partner / employee advocate

Hi Karin

While an HR professional will advocate for employees on occasion, we are not Employee Advocates.

I realise that your question acknowledges that HR roles are multi-facetted, but there is something about the way the question is phrased that has made me react exactly as Keith and David have.

I think it is because misunderstandings about the role of HR crop up in these forums from time to time: a belief that it is HR's role to be neutral, or that we are some kind of variation on a TU rep or social worker funded by the business or that we are Employee Advocates. We aren't. Anyone who characterises HR in any of these ways has fundamentally misunderstood what HR is for, what HR people do and the nature of the employment relationship. Having encountered these misconceptions in the past, it may be that I am now hyper-vigilant and am overreacting to your question. But I'm not the only one.

There can appear to be a balancing act in that sometimes for the good of the organisation we champion the rights of an employee. When you see that occurring, it is just us monitoring and managing the people system of the organisation, doing our jobs as part of the management team, fulfilling our duty to our employer.

That makes it sound as if there is no moral dimension to our work and of course there is. There is a moral dimension to every job in every function. I also get very cross when people try to characterise HR as the conscience of the organisation (which you haven't). This is highly dangerous. If HR is the conscience, then every other function is absolved of their moral responsibility. It's another one of those myths which has accreted around HR and which needs to be challenged vigorously.

What Elizabeth said! Elizabeth also posted on a different question that HR isn't a theoretical practice but actually exists in nuanced organisations. Would my colleagues in my business react well to my theorising about whether I was a pluralist or unitarian? Without a shadow of doubt they wouldn't!

What Elizabeth said! Elizabeth also posted on a different question that HR isn't a theoretical practice but actually exists in nuanced organisations. Would my colleagues in my business react well to my theorising about whether I was a pluralist or unitarian? Without a shadow of doubt they wouldn't!