However, practitioners that HR magazine spoke to also admitted that the function can do more to showcase its value to businesses.
On 1 February, The Times reported on a new book and a claim that Starmer’s chief of staff has described him as an “HR manager” rather than a leader.
Alison Whitfield, founder of HR consultancy Cultivate People Services, says she “doesn’t understand this” as an alleged insult against the prime minister.
Speaking to HR magazine, she said: “HR is absolutely a leadership role. Employees are often the most expensive asset you have, and there can be massive financial and legal risks to getting the people strategy wrong."
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Similarly, Cathy Acratopulo, CEO at HR consultancy LACE Partners explained that if she were “Keir Starmer, I’d take this as a compliment”, as senior HR practitioners make ideal national leaders.
“HR professionals today enable transformation, they enable people's growth, they deliver an amazing experience at work, they ensure that services deliver excellence too, plus they manage risk,” she told HR magazine. “A CPO wears many hats; it makes them ideally placed to help drive change and transformation.”
So, what is it that could make being called an “HR manager” a potential negative about a senior boss' leadership capabilities?
For Acratopulo, it could relate to an outdated perception of HR. “Historically, HR has dealt with the fallout of change, downsizing and compliance,” she said. “People may have a view of HR being timid, or taking orders or policing policies, rather than what we see far more of now – co-leading with CEOs and CFOs to be architects of change.”
Peter Evans, managing director of wellbeing assessment firm Tangibal, feels similarly: “HR gets bad press; but is that because they lack a voice or have allowed the function to be pushed down the corridor,” he told HR magazine.
“Maybe HR people are too bogged down with red tape and bureaucracy to be truly valued.”
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But, as Gethin Nadin, CIO of benefits platform Benefex added, “HR manages an increasingly broad and important remit” overseeing employee investment, often one of the most costly for the business.
“HR leaders have played a key role in navigating their organisations through some of the most economically strained and generation-defining events.”
