Mummy... when I grow up I want to be an HR Business Partner

Does that sound ridiculous? At dinner with a group of HRDs I asked that question, ‘what did you want to be when you were a child?’ Amongst the various train drivers and ballerinas, the more interesting answers were; executive secretary, police dog (yes a dog), and backing singer for Wet Wet Wet!  ‘all support roles’ I thought to myself...

If you ask a room of senior HR professionals how they got into HR and you will not hear any stories about childhood dreams turned into reality. HR is not featuring large in the dreams of 8 year olds, nor 18 or 23 year olds for that matter. Not many graduates are looking hard for the Human Resource path.

It’s not that I think any eight year old should be in any way practical about their future but you are more likely to hear something like ‘well I sort of fell into HR’. The up side is that the falling is often also in love with the profession and ‘I never looked back’ is often the next sentence. If it is so lovely why is it so accidental?  Listening to one group the thought occurred to me that HR is a kind of post-rationalised profession? Could it not be the quintessential post-modern profession, the domain of the wise and post conventional thinkers; a desired and treasured possibility for all business people; the jewel of careers? I imagine so.

At the recent Next Generation HR Leaders training I found that HR leaders agree (perhaps in a slightly less fanciful way). It seems there is a strong movement towards future thinking about the profession, fashioning and honing it. What was enervating was their primary focus was their profession, its reputation, deciding its purpose, designing the pathways for success and giving it a reputation to be proud of. There will probably be many personal rewards in playing a part in this but these are not obvious right now and it is more likely that this group’s visionary stance will be most helpful for the even further generations.

Of course if you ask any group of adults what they dreamt of becoming when they grew up it is rarely the job they now have (unless you are actually speaking to a room full of those teachers, ballet dancers and train drivers). We don’t always follow our dreams but that is not the main thing. The main thing is that HR is no longer meant to be the backing vocalists for business, and it seems many are taking the microphone.