Who put the Nail on the Door in HR?

Schism, it’s a strange word.
According to Wikipedia it means: is a split or division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within some other religion. It is also used of a split within a non-religious organization or movement or, more broadly, of a separation between two or more people, be it brothers, friends, lovers, etc.

A schismatic is a person who creates or incites schism in an organization or who is a member of a splinter group. Schismatic as an adjective means pertaining to a schism or schisms, or to those ideas, policies, etc. that are thought to lead towards or promote schism.

In religion, the charge of schism is distinguished from that of heresy, since the offence of schism concerns not differences of belief or doctrine but promotion of, or the state of, division,[1] but schisms frequently involve mutual accusations of heresy, and every heresy is a schism.[2]

On the 31st of October, 1517 a man named Martin Luther went to the door of Schlosskirche in Wittenberg and nailed his 95 Theses on the practice of papal indulgence and thus sparked the Reformation and divided the Catholic and Protestant churches, also throwing Europe into a period of social, cultural and political turmoil.

Although clearly one of the more famous of the schisms it was certainly not the first, some schisms have occurred without a great deal of conflict, but have come about by a natural progression within a cultures evolution. An example: In Buddhism, the first schism was set up by Devadatta, during Buddha's life. This schism didn't last long, and Devadatta later apologized for his misdeeds. Later (after Buddha's death), the early Buddhist schools came into being due to various schisms, but there is still some unclarity concerning the specific schisms that occurred, and the order in which they occurred. In the old texts, 18 or 20 early schools are mentioned. Later, there were the Mahayana and Vajrayana movements, which can be regarded as being schismatic in origin. Each school has various subgroups, which often are schismatic in origin. For example, in Thai Theravadin Buddhism there are two groups (Mahanikaya and Dhammayut), of which the Dhammayut has its origin partly in the Mahanikaya, and is the new and schismatic group. Both Mahanikaya and Dhammayut have many subgroups, which usually do not have schismatic origins, but came into being in a natural way, through the popularity of a (leader) monk. Tibetan Buddhism has seen schisms in the past, of which most were healed, although the Drukpa school centred in Bhutan perhaps remains in a state of schism (since 1616) from the other Tibetan schools. In recent years political manipulation from China has attempted to create further schisms among Tibetan Buddhists. But since the religious authority of the Dalai Lama is uncertainly defined, schism in Tibetan Buddhism is hard to detect.

So my question today is, who put the nail on the door in Human Resources? I’m not sure when it started, in fact we may be able to trace it’s roots to this period in time:

The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and transport had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions starting in the United Kingdom, then subsequently spreading throughout Europe, North America, and eventually the world. The onset of the Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in human history; almost every aspect of daily life was eventually influenced in some way.

Or it may have it’s history in this movement:

Fordism, named after Henry Ford, refers to various social theories about production and related socio-economic phenomena.[1] It has varying but related meanings in different fields, as well as for Marxist and non-Marxist scholars.

Regardless of the ending point the Human Resources field has undergone significant change since it arrived on the corporate scene sometime during the early 19th century. At that point the function was primarily administrative and process driven in nature.

At some point possibly due to the Fordism movement we started to see the first significant schisms in the HR world. Namely we moved from a Generalist function to more specialized functions. Within this framework we see the emergence of five main schools of specialization:
• Training and Development
• Compensation and Benefits
• Occupational Health and Safety
• Recruitment and Talent Management
• Industry and Employee Relations
Although they initially are seen as co-operative in nature the schisms create a unigue dynamic within the HR profession. As HR begins to struggle to be heard as a value added partner within the corporate world the individual schools begin to differentiate themselves more and more and become less and less cooperative. Some would say this is because they are all vying for an ever smaller slice of the corporate budget, and some would say it is because of the constant cycle of boom, bust and echo.

Regardless, in the mid 80’s something strange happens – we begin to see especially in the recruiting world a greater move towards specialization. We start to see sub-schools in some of the major professions mentioned above. For example: Sourcing becomes and specialization of Recruitment and Talent Management which then delegates Recruiters to an “Account” and “Candidate” management function. Further Sourcing in the late 90’s begins to schism again into Internet and Phone sourcing.
With each subsequent schism (and Recruiting is just an example) we see more and more barriers to communication; in fact practitioners begin to identify themselves not at Human Resources but by their specialization ie. I’m a Pension Admin, or I’m a Phone Sourcer etc...

Does that mean the Human Resources profession disappears. No, of course not, according to the outside world all the schools are lumped into one greater profession.

And here we come to the rub of my thesis, at the last #Talentnet live we started to have a conversation about HR Street Credibility. And the universal opinion is that we don’t have a good one. This was a conversation between different schools of HR practitioners. Some suggested that we don’t have a great reputation because we spend a lot of time being critical of ourselves. I thought that I would test this theory so I went out on the street in Toronto and randomly selected a number of people and asked if they liked Human Resources. Out of a random sample of 100 people with about 60% female and 40% male asking the question “Would you say Human Resources has a good reputation” and then “do you feel good about Human Resources”. 75% of respondents said that they felt that Human Resources had a good reputation and 76% said they felt good about Human Resources. This is a small sample for sure, however the results were very surprising, and likely warrants further study.

So I asked the question to myself where is the disparity? And I wonder if the schism of HR schools has done more bad than good in our industry. Have we gotten so used to fighting each other in the corporate boardrooms that it’s colored our view of our industry as a whole? Could we be operating with an assumption based on our own internal battles that are not represented in the real world?

If this is the case I think there is hope. It comes in the form of what we termed in a very late night in London in November 2009 “Social Human Convergence”, which I define as a convergence of the Human Resources Schools via Social Media. I believe that we are currently engaged in a conversation through multiple social mediums that we have not seen for a long time in Human Resources. We have proponents of many of the major schools currently conversing about common issues throughout the sphere of our profession. These are difficult discussion, and they should be expected to be given that we are re-learning the process of co-operative communication. I hope with all my heart that the conversations continue…and that it will lead to a re-evaluation of the standing of our profession and maybe a “sanity check” on our perceptions vs. the outside world.

Because that could be Radical.