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For those of you with
prior work experience, here are some simple questions.
Who was the person
representing the company when you first walked in for an assessment
interview? Possibly, a guy from the HR department of the company, taking
care of recruitments.
For those of you who have
had issues with the management or have at any stage switched jobs, who
was the person who played the role of ears and mouth of the company?
Again a person from the HR department.
Your experiences might
vary from firm to firm but the point that the HR department is an
important representative of the company has been made. In fact HR is the
sole department taking care of a company's internal marketing. You will
be happy or unhappy with your firm depending upon the extent to which
the people from this department have understood the HR policies of your
firm and employed them for your benefit.
The idea of viewing HR as
an independent corporate activity deserving credit is a pretty recent
one in India. There are many reasons why HR might have been relegated to
the shadows of its more dashing cousins like marketing, finance and
operations. A few prominent ones being -
-
The wretched salaries
being offered till very recently to HR professionals. (This is
changing.)
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Lack of corporate
backing to educational institutions, which are churning out HR
professionals.
-
The general
perception of students about HR being a "common sense" discipline
not worth specializing in.
-
Lack of apparent
"Power" and "Glamour" associated with an HR profile.
I will try to address the
above-mentioned concerns / misconceptions over the next few paragraphs. |