I was struck the other day by a post that Tim Baker shared on Linkedin suggesting that one in three HR professionals in the UK were considering leaving the profession, with 41% suggesting unnecessary admin as one of the causes. Now, of course, the company behind the research has a solution and….surprise, surprise…that happens to be exactly what they do as a company. But despite my loathing of this kind of “research”, (so much so that I’ll share link above to Tim because he’s worth connecting with, but I won’t share any links to the company, because…it is very average), yes, despite all of this, it did get me thinking.

I wouldn’t mind betting if you asked 100 random employees what they thought of HR in their organisation, one of the things the majority would raise is the unnecessary paperwork, the bureaucracy, the processes that seem both endless and pointless. And I wouldn’t mind betting if you spoke to 100 random HR professionals and asked them what they liked least about their jobs, they’d say the unnecessary paperwork, the bureaucracy and the processes that nobody seems to follow and so are endless and pointless.

So what on earth is going on? Who is responsible and simply, why can’t this all stop? As someone who has raged against process most of my career, to the understandable frustration and eye rolling of my colleagues, and who has (sometimes successfully but mostly unsuccessfully) tried to reduce it, I’ve got a few theories:

1. The power of one – Every form that’s created or process that is added is only looked at as a singular piece of work, not in the entirety of the experience. So every time something is added, it seems eminently reasonable in isolation. But lumped together with everything else, the whole thing becomes an unmanageable blob.
2. The lack of measures – I don’t know of any organisations, although they might exist, where there is a firm rule on the amount of admin that any one person is expected to do and therefore a finite limit. Why does this matter? Because if you had a firm rule and you were at the limit, then to add something in, you’d need to take something out.
3. The fear of lawyers – Well, it isn’t really the lawyers, they’re generally an amiable bunch, it is the over regulation and imposition of onerous burdens of proof on the employment relationship that means that the simplest way to defend against anything is to document it to within an inch of it’s life. Although, I’m told by those on the inside that law companies are the worst for following any kind of process – surely what’s good for the goose is good for the gander?
4. The calibre of the profession – If you’ve only ever worked in process heavy, admin focused HR functions then how can you be expected to know that anything else is possible? And anyone who suggests it can must be mad, bad or ready for retirement! But where are the creative thinkers coming through the profession who want to shape a completely different future of work? Oh yes, they’re working from home and on Teams meetings all day…adding value.
5. The belief in a silver bullet – The very average research was carried out by a company that sells tech solutions. As long as I’ve worked in the profession we’ve been told that tech is going to be the answer, most recently AI. Systemising or automating rubbish doesn’t stop it being rubbish, it just makes it expensive rubbish that likely disappoints.

HR teams say they want to be more strategic and less admin focused, yet they are the ones that create the admin in the first place. Businesses say they want their HR teams to be more strategic and less admin focused, but they rarely hold them to the account. Managers say they want to be able to get on with their jobs, but they don’t want to take the responsibility for making decisions. Sometimes it seems to me we all want the same things, but maybe it suits us all better the way that it is.