THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT
Don D
9,834 Posts
[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-08-04 AT 08:10AM (CST)[/font][br][br]Thou shalt never place a person of accounting background in any position of administration over Human Resources. I tire reading posts to the Forum bemoaning the fact that Human Resources is admistratively reporting to some accountant or controller or comptroller who has paralized the department. This makes no more sense than placing the maintenance department under the public relations group or the psychiatric department under the department of buildings and grounds. If you want to see your company/firm/agency/organization forever screwed up and mired in paralysis-analysis, put Human Resources under a finance administrator. Sorry to be so vague. x:-)
Comments
The job I have now is wonderful. Small company so I report to Treasurer/Contoller but sit next to President and interact with him as much as Controller. Also, I am not nit picked, but left to get the "job done". I finally decided that don't care who I report to as long as they will let me know the big picture and leave me alone to do my work.
E Wart
Financial people typically (can I use that word?) need everyting to balance and prove out. Not so in a HR environment. They deal with black and white, and we have all these grays areas. If you end up reporting to a financial person, I think it really depends on that person ability to recognize that HR is an unique area. The micro managing, the second guessing, the interrogations, the constant need to be kept abreast are traits many, many individuals have. Some just happen to be in finance.
It usually goes something like this.
Me: No you can't do that. FLSA, or FMLA or ADA or OSHA says yada, yada, yada.
Them: Can you find the ruling?
Next day or later that day
Them: I called our attorney and he said that your assessment of the situation is accurate.
Me: Duh.
People schooled in the processes of black and white often do not find comfort in either.
So maybe M Lee Smith should make this one of their weekly polls? I'd be curious as to the results.
Who does the head of HR report to?
CEO 32%
President 24%
Vice President 15%
Finance Department 9%
Operations Department 3%
Other 13%
2834 total responses
You can find the rest of the survey in the Subscribers Area of this website if you're an Employment Law Letter subscriber:
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/lc/[/url]
James Sokolowski
HRhero.com
>because so many of the responsibilities overlap
>such as payroll, benefits, compensation and
>budgeting.
Interestingly, SW, none of those are traditional Human Resources functions of monumental value, unless you consider the mundane tasks of establishing pay grades and running salary surveys and talking to groups and an endless stream of individuals about benefits. The problem HR professionals have, and I take great risk and liberty in speaking for us, is in the non-black-and-white areas such as the administration of company policy, the application of a multitude of labor laws, the interraction with employees on myriad planes, things like grievances, complaints, investigations, recruiting, interviewing, rejecting, accepting, recommending, calling attorneys for counsel, administering the company discipline program, employee relations, union avoidance, gosh how long can the list get? And most if not all of those have little appreciation in the accounting community, or such has been my experience over 35 years. It's as if when you work as a direct report of an accountant-type, you best just not even discuss those issues. Just proceed and explain later. And do it all over again every month. I don't report to a CFO now, thank God. Thankfully it's a national HR executive who reports to another national executive who reports to the corporate CEO/President. Beancounters report to beancounters. And you cannot twist and screw HR professionals into that mold. x:-)
It really is a shame when HR is misunderstood.
I am now looking into a position with my past company's major competitor that has an HR Rep in every location.
I currently wear the CFO hat along with the HR Director hat. I have worn the CFO hat in more than one company, including a 4 year stint in a company that was at one time, the largest privately held corporation in America. I have also been EVP, COO, controller and a CPA. I am not listing these job descriptions to impress anyone, just listing them so you can understand why I might consider myself qualified to respond. In all of these situations, the HR department has reported to me. I will admit that early on, I knew very little about the HR arena, but I made it my business to get training and to hire individuals with the knowledge I lacked. We always made decisions together. HR's input was always solicited when appropriate and although I made the decisions and lived with the results, it was a rare circumstance that I did not completely incorporate thier input. I cannot speak for all of my compadres in accounting, but to label us black and white thinkers without the imagination to see in color is an unfair and inaccurate characterization.
The wide-spread shotgun bursts that have been aimed at the accounting profession can be said of any of the professions, even HR types. The mundane tasks of administering various facets of any business is generally done by lower paid EEs with varying levels of training - this is true in any department and any profession.
As one climbs the ladder in any department or profession, you will find some common trends: Those that have higher degrees of responsibility should reflect higher degrees of knowledge dealing with that specific department or profession and, should begin having a grasp of, or an appreciation for the bigger picture. Thus while a supervisor of billing might have an accounting degree, he/she would not be expected to have much depth in HR, however, any EE that is in senior management or with those aspirations, should have a working knowledge of every facet of the companies business.
While I do not have a SHRM certification as a generalist or specialist, I think I could pass the certification tests just by taking one of the review courses, which I have considered putting on my professional development task list. Now that I am wearing the HR hat instead of having the HR department report to me, I have found it necessary to improve the depth and breadth of my everyday working knowledge with respect to HR. I apply that knowledge on a regular basis and to date, we spend very little on our attorneys and (knock on wood), are not currently having any issues in front of our courts or HR agencies.
We do have a turnover rate I am not satisfied with (18%) and I am behind on revising our handbook - it is nearly ready for review by legal, but other than that, I think I do a descent job of administering HR in our shop - even for a CFO.
That said, any company, and I don't think size matters much here, that does not pay attention to the wild, ever changing tie-dyed patterns with which HR is faced on a daily basis is doomed to under performance.
We do a different topic each month, like FMLA, attendance, or documentation, and the purpose is to let readers can see how other employers handle these issues. You can see the responses from employers nationwide, or just employers in your state, or private-sector, non-union employers with more than 500 employees, etc.
You can find out about new surveys -- where you can take them and where to find the results -- in HR Hero Line, our free weekly e-mail newsletter. We'll announce a new survey next week.
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James Sokolowski
HRhero.com
(PS How come HR professionals don't have letters have their names? Hmmmmm. What about CPO...."Chief People Officer".
I am the Senior Accountant and HR Director.
To make sure what Don has explained does not occur here I created 2 job descriptions.
My limited Senior Accountant duties have me at times reporting to our Controller.
As for the HR Director, not the case. This reports only to Vice President who understands the whole picture.
If I had to answer to the Controller on my HR stuff I would have left a long time ago.
Accounting is black and white.
HR is fuzzy grey and off white at times.
The two do not mix well at all.
And Don, don't you dare come back with a comment about my black and white being a discriminatory statement!
>background in any position of administration
>over Human Resources."
Sorry I haven't had time to read all the posts in this thread - I've been busy producing accounting spreadsheets in reference to retirement plans. Retirement, and area of benefit that falls under HR and cannot be administered without some concept of finances. The senior level HR person who researches, develops, and recommends benefit plans should know some accounting. The finance department should know something about benefits but usually is clueless until they attend open enrollment. HR knows Section 125 like the back of their hand. I certainly would not want to be placed under the supervision of the bean counters for whom I generate spreadsheets and cost estimates. Working WITH finance is one thing, working FOR them is another. We can weave a decent benefits package (which by the way is a mere small facet of HR)with the cooperation of finance, but it's ludicrous to be the block under them in the organizational chart.