Dear Editor,
I have been reflecting on a brief exchange I had with a very senior business manager a few weeks ago. En passant he commented on the virtual collapse of a much discussed national organisation, part of which he attributed to poor leadership – an observation with which I heartily agreed.
While there was no time for either of us to analyse the shortcomings of the present leadership, he was of the firm view that the most senior executive of the particular organisation should have relevant ‘operational experience,’ as opposed to an announced change whereby the organisation was likely to be headed by someone with a ‘human resources (HR)’ management background. The clear implication was that however successful the latter was, that ‘specialisation’ was not as adequate for the demands of leadership as his ‘operational’ counterpart.
Caution restrained me from responding more assertively, realising that my comments may very likely be interpreted as a personal defence of my own professions.
Were there opportunity to spend more leisurely time I would have advised him that the most successful chief executives in the sugar industry were one Harold Davis, and Neville Hilary of Booker Tate, in that order. In the case of the former, clerks, apprentices, field foremen would unabashedly testify that Davis identified their potential, and organised their development into qualified accountants, engineers, agriculturalists, and of course HR managers, as well as other disciplines.
His colleague ‘operational’ executives willingly acknowledged it was the dynamism of the human resource management function which energised the productivity of ‘operational’ managers, supervisors and even the supervised, in the sugar industry.
HB Davis went on to become Chairman of the Board of GTM, which included ‘operational’ CEOs in their own right.
There are more of us who have been fortunate to be beneficiaries of that mentoring and developmental process instituted by Davis, and who feel sufficiently confident to challenge any CEO in the area of organisational management. The above apart, the obverse of the initial preference for ‘operational’ experience could be interpreted by some as exclusive of relevant HR management skills – a myopic view that probably serves to explain the prevalent narrow perspective of what the HR management function is all about.
But even before those halcyon days the HR function, then described as ‘personnel management,’ had made a tremendous impact on both public and private sector officials and managers respectively, as far back as the early 1960s, through the creation of the National Personnel Officers’ Association (NPOA). This organisation’s public programmes were so respected by ‘operational’ managers that the latter insisted on a change of the constitution to allow them membership. As a consequence engineers, chemists, accountants, marketing personnel, as well as trade unionists, were accommodated in an organisation transitioned to become the Guyana Institute of Management (GIM).
But the foregoing argumentation is hardly my priority concern, except that the legacy of commanding performance is now hardly sustained. HR practitioners are currently only seen as persons who implement policy made at a higher level. They no longer enjoy the status of leadership which competes with, or moreso threatens ‘operational’ counterparts. Even the few at the directorate level do not enjoy comparable authority and independence. What ‘initiatives’ they appear to take are, more often than not, at the proddings from above.
What accounts for this relatively subordinate relationship of the HR management function to what is loosely described as the ‘operational’ management function? The implication must be that the HR management function is non-operational.
The evidence, even though from a distance, strongly suggests that most chairmen and boards of enterprises, not unlike their public sector counterparts, have insufficient understanding of what HR management and development is substantively about. Briefly, it includes recruiting the right (operational) resource, plotting a programme for his or her growth, monitoring and evaluating individual and (collective) performance; coordinating the design and execution of programmes of preparation for correct upward placement. Amongst others, the foregoing involve, and require the HR functionary to have the most comprehensive and in-depth appreciation of the productivity target and the technology of each component of the organisation, while keeping the heads of those ‘operational’ units continually sensitive to the organisation’s mission.
According to Jack Welch, the renowned former Chairman and Chief Executive of GE (General Electric), one of the world’s largest international companies, the HR practitioner must be both ‘pastor and parent.’ Welch would prefer that his HR executive be no less than No 2 in the organisation.
Unfortunately, however, existing boards do not generally appear to share this perspective. As a consequence they make little provision for the (potential) attributes referred to above to be developed, and in turn are not sufficiently appreciative of the loss of value to their own organisations. It would be interesting to learn how many private sector boards include membership of an authoritative HR specialist.
In the meanwhile, appreciation of the HR function in the public sector is only apparent among what is described as semi-autonomous statutory bodies, such as the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, Guyoil, Guyana Revenue Authority and the Audit Office of Guyana, for example.
So far as the budget agencies of the traditional public service are concerned, only in the Ministry of Education, and the Public Service Ministry is one HR post each mentioned.
The latter ministry, however, is in a remarkable state of stagnation wherein, after several large donor-funded ‘modernisation’ consultancies, it continues to designate only the following positions, as recorded in the National Estimates for all other agencies: Chief Personnel Officer, Principal Personnel Officer, Senior Personnel Officer, and Personnel Officer I & II.
These ascriptors reflect a discouraging indifference to, if not disregard for, the substantive role of the HR functionary in a (so-called) ‘modernised’ governance structure – a situation, incidentally, which would only have been long overlooked, if not totally ignored, by the most observant stakeholders, simply because they too do not comprehend the strategic necessity for effective HR management and development.
Indeed, the exponential increase of ‘contract’ employment in the public service has resulted in a complementary derogation of the concept and principle of i) succession planning, and ii) promotion (amongst other critical issues) both of which are founded on an objective and regulated performance appraisal process.
In our time, experience in the sugar industry reinforced the beneficial results of a dedicated performance appraisal system. We executives also found the exercise to be cost effective, in that the overall average cost of the application of graduated increments usually fell within the planned budget. So that in the final analysis, everybody won, ambitions were fulfilled, productivity enhanced and targets.
This is not fiction. It is a factual situation experienced, not only by my colleague generation of managers, several thousands of employees, but also most importantly by the unionists of the day, who heartily supported this explicit investment in human resources development, and recognised the gainful returns.
But in the final analysis, it is less about the mundanity of the human as a ‘resource,’ and much more about the upliftment of the human’s self-esteem.
Yours faithfully,
E B John
