I said the following last week on a show called the HR Happy Hour: "There's a word for HR pros who don't recruit - they're called secretaries".
I thought about what I wanted to say for about 10 seconds before I said it. I pondered "administrators". Didn't get the effect I was looking for, so I opted for secretaries. I got some emails and tweets that said I called all HR pros secretaries. That's not true - I called HR pros who can't/won't recruit secretaries. Big difference.
I'm a HR Generalist. My definition of that is that I do it all - recruit, employee relations, benefits, performance management, etc. I'm also a firm believer that Generalist roles span the globe of HR titles - Generalists can be found at the Rep/individual contributor, manager, director and VP levels.
So, here's the deal - The death of the generalist is overblown. Sure, specialists are alive and well in bigger companies that get press, but in the guts of the American economy, companies still hire generalists to take care of HR business. That will continue. As Flavor Flav once said, "don't believe the hype", especially when it comes to the death of the HR generalists.
In fact, there's only one thing that can prevent you from being a thriving HR generalist along the lines of my definition - an unwillingness to chase the most valuable aspects of your craft - whether you're asked to or not. Those aspects generally revolve around talent management - starting with recruiting - not administrative activities.
You're good at the administrative side of the business? Congratulations. You allow it to suck up 95% of your time and you say you don't have time to do any recruiting or other talent management activity? Allow me to withdraw my back-pat. You have an efficiency problem and/or you're simply settling for the things you are most comfortable with.
And the world views you as a secretary whether you are a male or a female. Do a 360 on yourself with tough questions and learn the reality. Tell the CEO what you're focused on and what you don't have time to do. See what she says. If she's honest, she'll agree with me. Or she'll start looking harder to outsource the transactional side of your business. Which you just told me is what you focus on.
The best HR pros, especially on the generalist side of the business, don't allow themselves to be defined by transactions. They commit a certain percentage of time to transactions and protect time to go after the most valuable contributions they can make to the business. Chasing true talent issues (or not) is a choice that every generalist makes. It's there for you to focus on.
What are the most valuable things for you to work on as a generalist? It all starts with your ability to go after talent from the recruiting side. I've come into departments whose definition of that was posting a job on Monster and then forwarding 100 resumes with no screening to a hiring manager.
They called that recruiting. I called it being a secretary. And it happens more places than you might think.
You think you belong in the NextGenHR classification? You better show some passion towards the pure talent side of the business. While I'm focused on recruiting, you could easily plug in performance management, organizational development, etc. But you've got to do those things while you keep all the other balls (administration) in the air. If you are mad as you read this, that's OK. I'm challenging you to really think about what's meaningful in an HR practice.
Don't hate. Be a player. Don't be a secretary.
