‘The issue here is really that we think line managers should be doing most of the personnel function,' explains chief executive, Keith Boardall, "Managers and supervisors should have the right relationship with their teams and they can only do this if it's an all-embracing one. Every time there's a problem you don't want to go through the rigmarole of going through a personnel manager who's slightly to the left of cloud nine and has no idea who he's dealing with."
Of course, he says, line managers don't do everything. "Records are centralised - we do have someone who keeps them. But anyone can do filing. However, when it comes to sorting out a fellow's problems, he has to go to his line manager. His manager will know who he is. If I had a workplace problem, I'd want to talk to the person who managed me everyday - and who is most likely to understand what's going on." Boardall adds that individual managers also tend to keep in touch with staff when they leave and handle recruitment.
As well as having managers know their staff well, Boardall believes having so called ‘shop- floor HR' keeps the company "feeling small and accountable" and lets you know whether managers are actually any good. "What's the line manager for but managing people? When you do appraisals the line manager needs to know everything - for instance, if someone's turning up late why is that. Are they having marital problems? And when something goes wrong, the line manager can't has to deal with it rather than just passing int off to HR."
Boardall also believes HR can add unnecessary layers of bureaucracy and form filling to an organisation. "I spent 20 years working in companies with big personnel departments and it could get a bit like social services," he says. "They were more interested in following procedure than they were with getting things done for people. We live in a bureaucratic age and maybe my view is a bit Victorian. But I believe it's the way to go."
Case study: Reed Bordall has no need for an HR department
Yorkshire-based chilled and frozen distribution company Reed Boardall is, in many respects, a typical company. It has all the functions a business of 700+ staff expects to have; finance, marketing, PR; all the functions except an HR department that is.
