1、Fortune January 15, 1996, p.105. (Thomas A. Stewart哈佛商业评论总编托马斯斯图沃特 ) 炸掉你的人力资源部 意译Taking On the Last BureaucracyPeople Need People-But Do They Need Personnel? Its Time for Human Resources Departments to Put Up or Shut Up.Nestling warm and sleepy in your company, like the asp in Cleopatras bosom, is a
2、 department whose employees spend 80% of their time on routineadministrative tasks. Nearly every function of this department can be performed more expertly for less by others. Chances are its leaders are unable todescribe their contribution to value added except in trendy, unquantifiable, and wannab
3、e terms-yet, like a serpent unaffected by its own venom, thedepartment frequently dispenses to others advice on how to eliminate work that does not add value. It is also an organization where the averageadvertised salary for professional staffers increased 30% last year.I am describing, of course, y
4、our human resources department, and have a modest proposal: Why not blow the sucker up?【在你的公司中存在着一个暖洋洋的、昏昏欲睡的，就像是科洛巴特拉（古埃及艳后，用毒蛇自杀）胸脯上的毒蛇一样的东西，这个东西就是你公司中的一个部门。这个部门所属雇员 80的时间都用在了日常性的行政管理事务上。该部门的几乎所有的职能都可以让其他部门用更少的时间却更为熟练地去完成。更要命的是该部门的领导人无法描述出他们对公司的价值增值所作出的具体贡献是什么，而只能用一些流行的、无法量化的和苍白无力的语言来为自己辩解 然而，正如毒蛇
5、不会收到自己的毒液感染一样，这个部门竟然还常常向其他部门提建议，告诉他们如何精简那些不会给公司带来价值增值的工作。不仅如此，从招聘广告上看，在这个部门中工作的专业人员的平均薪资水平去年竟然上升了30。我所描述的当然就是你们公司的人力资源管理部门，因此我想给你一个小小的建议是：为什么不把你的人力资源管理部门炸掉算了？】I dont mean improve HR. Improvements for wimps. I mean abolish it. Deep-six it. Rub it out; eliminate, toss, obliterate, nuke it; give it the
6、 old heave-ho, force it to walk the plank, turn it into road kill.Why not?Consider what HR does and whether it should do it. Start with payroll, since thats a subject dear to the hearts of HRs clientele. Outside providers now cut an estimated 25% of all paychecks issued in the United States. Their b
7、usiness boometh. The employers services division of Automatic Data Processing of Roseland, New Jersey, the biggest business in the field, grew 13% in 1995 and has been growing at double-digit rates for years. The reason, says Fred Anderson, ADPs chief financial officer: “As companies move off mainfr
8、ames, they are taking a look at what applications are strategic to them. When they decide that payroll and human resources functions are not strategic, they outsource them.“ Back in the office, HRs contribution to payroll administration comes down to keeping enough forms on hand for new hires to fil
9、l in and holding checks for people who were out of town on payday and havent yet signed up for direct deposit.薪酬（支付）：牵涉到 HR 所服务群体的核心利益，外部服务提供商已负责了全美 25%的工资偿付业务。该行业增长趋势明显，领头羊企业在 1995 年增长率 13%（以保持多年的两位数增长），其 CEO 认为正因为薪酬偿付及 HR 职能对于企业来说没有战略意义，所以进行了外包。【人力部门总是给大量的表格给新雇佣员工填写，或者替暂时无法领取工资的员工保管支票】The same thi
10、ng is happening with benefits administration. Johnson information systems and record keeping; employee services such as retirement counseling, outplacement, and relocation; and health and safety (workers compensation, wellness programs, drug testing, and OSHA compliance). None, the Corporate Leaders
11、hip Council noted, have much potential to produce competitive advantage for a company that does them especially well in-house; all offer economies of scale to outside suppliers; and for several, outsourcing reduces risk by offloading exposure to liability or regulatory claims.To their credit, HR dep
12、artments have seized the opportunity to outsource. Under pressure to cut costs, they have jettisoned administrative bureaucracies like drug dealers tossing hemp into the sea when a Coast Guard cutter heaves into view. The ten biggest employee benefits consulting-and-outsourcing firms earned over $3
13、billion in revenue in 1994, 242% more than they did ten years before.某协会对 500 家企业进行调研（关于人力资源部门的角色转变），得出结论是：HR 职能中有 4 大模块具有极大潜力可以完全外包福利设计及管理、信息系统及记录保持、员工服务（退休咨询、离职后新工作介绍、重新安置）、健康与安全（薪酬及健康计划、毒品测试、安全条例遵守度）。而且，在内部运营好这些职能并不会为企业带来多少竞争优势；同时，外包出去都能形成规模经济效应；其中一些职能外包还能通过减少责任、监控声明来规避风险。人力资源部门迫于降低成本的压力，不得不抛弃部分官
14、僚组织。十个最大的员工福利咨询及外包公司在 1994 年收入总和超过 30 亿美元，比十年前增长了 242%。But why stop there? A slew of (极多)other traditional HR functions can also be outsourced or devolved from HR to the line. Take recruiting. Everywhere Ive worked where I had to hire people, the rule of thumb among managers was to involve HR as lit
15、tle as possible in the process. When HR professionals are themselves looking for work, two-thirds of the time they find it by networking or using search firms (a form of outsourcing), according to a survey of the HR job market by Manchester Partners International, a Philadelphia-based coalition of o
16、utplacement and executive-coaching consultants. Sure, HR performs a useful role maintaining job-posting lists, promoting diversity, and monitoring compliance with equal-opportunity laws, but just because the priest has to post the banns doesnt mean he should pick your spouse（牧师不得不念结婚誓词，并不代表他要帮人选配偶）.
17、很多其他的 HR 只能都可以外包或者转移到前线部门。例如招聘，很多部门经理在招聘时都对 HR 唯恐避之不及。某调查结果 HR 自己找工作的时候都把大部分时间花在网络搜索，或通过搜寻公司（一种外包）来找工作。HR 发布招聘广告，提升员工多样性等工作确实有些意义，但他们并不真正负责员工招聘（部门自己招人）。Designing and running compensation and reward systems is another candidate for the combination of outsourcing and devolution-ironically, especially
18、when state-of-the-art reward mechanisms(最先进的/ 顶尖的报酬机制) are of paramount importance to competing. There may be a few companies with the scope and resources to conceive of innovative compensation plans, study them (necessarily by trial and error), find and extirpate contradictions (for example, teachi
19、ng people how to work in cross-functional teams while functional bosses control all rewards), and reinvent them for yet another test. Still fewer might be able to do that quickly without confusing people and without turning on the organizations immune system. Says James Kochanski, a principal at the
20、 Sibson of the $889,000 HR proposed spending on training, the general managers okayed only $222,000-one dollar out of four. THAT SHOULDNT be surprising. You dont have to visit Washington to realize that bureaucracies self-inflate faster than airbags and, unlike airbags, often for no good reason. Say
21、s Vikesh Mahendroo, executive vice president of William M. Mercer, the big HR consulting firm: “HR is often out of sync with the needs of the business. The important question is, Will companies be able to bring the competence of the HR function to the level the business requires?“ Mahendroo thinks t
22、hey can-if they devote the same attention to reinventing human resources that they have to finance, manufacturing, and other areas.And if hes wrong, how far can a company go? Steel giant Nucor, with 6,000 employees, runs human resources with a headquarters staff of just three people (one a secretary
23、), one HR agent at each plant (who reports to its general manager, not to corporate), and a set of company HR principles. Says Chairman Kenneth Iverson (who answers his own phone at the famously lean company): “We pushed the responsibility down to the divisional level. It works fine.“培训：讽刺员工们都没觉得人力部
24、门提供的培训很有价值。认为只有及时的、和工作紧密相关的，紧密贴切直线职能的，而非 没有进行针对性设计的培训，才是有价值的。某调查显示，人力资源部的培训花销，总经理只认可其中的 1/4 是花得有价值的。美世公司的副总裁说：“HR 常和业务需要不同步。一个重要问题是，企业能使 HR 职能的竞争力与业务要求齐平吗”他认为企业只要投入如财务、生产等其他领域所需的同等精力，来重塑 HR。相反的话，企业会怎样呢？某钢铁巨头公司，有 6000 名员工，总公司人力部只有 3 人（包括一个秘书），每个工厂有一个人事部及一些规范的人事制度（由厂长负责，而非总公司），他们将 HR 职责推进到事业部层面，运行得很好。
25、Just as Georges Clemenceau said, “War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military,“ so human capital is too important to be left to Personnel. Says Matthew Olson, executive director of the corporate Leadership Council: “This is a make-or-break moment for the function.“ HR people say
26、 that their work, far from becoming less important as they turn administrivia over to others, has become of high strategic importance. We are, they say, the trustees of the asset that matters above all others, proactive custodians of our core competence, holders of the keys to competitive advantage
27、in the new economy.True, true, true-but are these the guys you want to put in charge? Nothing is more dangerous than a group of people trained in the art of monitoring compliance with rules, fluent in a language that does not include a word for “customer,“ and who have time on their hands and are lo
28、oking for something to do. Theres a reason that more and more new HR executives come to the post with backgrounds in line management or consulting rather than from HRs own ranks. Says Mahendroo: “Ive seen this much, much more in the last five years.“ There are two messages here. One, Mahendroo notes
29、, is that human-capital management has become important enough that it is “an acceptable career path for an up-and-comer.“ The second is that many people doing the work now cant cut it in the HR of the future.现在已经是“立”或者“ 破”的关键时刻了。人力资源部声称自己具有高度战略意义，企业最重要的资源委托在他们手中，包含着企业的核心竞争力，人力资源掌握着通往新经济时代竞争优势的关键。但是
30、，现在的人事部只是一堆官僚机构，没有顾客导向的服务意识，混混度日。现在许多新的 HR 总监有着直线经理或咨询背景。美世公司 VP 认为：人力资管理已经很重要了，使得这样的职业通道被认可；同时，现在的许多 HR 人员无法胜任未来的人力资源管理。HUMAN RESOURCES has come to the proverbial fork in the road. One path leads to a highly automated employee-services operation handling what used to be paperwork in a ragingly effi
31、cient way. This function becomes little more than a gateway to outside suppliers, impersonal in one sense but highly amenable to supporting personalized, cafeteria-style services. The other leads straight to the CEOs office. Says Sibsons Kochanski: “Im not clear whether the two functions have to be
32、in the same organization. The high-tech part might be merged with other data centers, and the strategy part might link up better with other strategy parts.“Clearly, companies need a place to think about the skills they need and will need, about executive development, about a way to focus on human ca
33、pital. This is precisely why they should ask the do-or-die question of their human resources departments. The prospect of hanging, as Dr. Johnson said, is a sure way of concentrating the mind.人力资源管理已经到了明显的发展岔路口。一方面指向高度自动化的服务导向操作系统，这方面职能很可能被外包，虽然少了点儿人情味，但更能高效地提供个性化的自助式服务。一方面指向 CEO 的工作范畴。（某人）认为 HR 的这两
34、方面职能并不一定需要在同一组织中运作，高度技术化的部分可以和其他的数据中心合并，战略部分最好向其他战略部门靠拢。显然，企业需要一个地方来思考他们现在和将来需要的技能，来应对管理发展，以及找到重视人力资源的某种方法。这就是问什么现在必须直指人力资源部生或死的问题。一种将死的威胁，确实能成为提炼集中其能力的方法。总结： HR 的现有职能都能外包或转移到直线部门来获得高效回报；HR 无法很好地满足企业内部顾客，没有成为业务部门的合作伙伴；HR 没有担当起战略性思考的责任，可以提升给高管层去负责。HR 必须考虑转型，否则只能面对死亡。(夸张、视角单一、警醒为主）问题延伸：乌尔里奇 1998 年哈佛商业评论文章a new mandate for human resources
