Most folks don't realize it, but the phrase above is redundant. Intrinsically, the function of HR is CYA for the company. By the time you have full-blown HR, CYA is present.
One example: Need to fire someone? Trained HR folks will help you navigate the minefield of legalities.
Making a suboptimal recommendation knowing it will harm someone else more than it will harm you. Diffusing responsibility. Inflating estimates. etc etc.
Maybe other people have different experiences, but I've never met an HR person who did one and not the other.
Additionally, good HR strategy includes implementing events, training programs, talent development strategies, etc., so that retention and promotion of existing employees is just as important as recruitment of new ones.
A reasonable KPI, in this case, is turnover (both by volume and by average employee timespan). The ability to find world-class talent by the bucketload is all but wasted if existing employees tend to bounce after 6 months to a year.
This is part of the Innovator's Dilemma--people tend to keep doing what is working "well enough" because they can't be blamed for that, and opportunity cost tends to be invisible unless it's looked for. Meanwhile, a competitor with less to lose is more likely to take the risky bet. If they succeed, they eventully beat the former incumbent.
Edit to add: in the case of hiring, CYA can mean hiring someone who's no different from anyone else currently employed in the company--and therefore perhaps missing an opportunity to create positive change.
Thanks but no thanks.
One of the companies my father owned, he one day went to see something at the police station, and saw open book of wanted criminals, and found half of his employees there, and all of them were in the same criminal group, while inside the company they behaved like if they did not knew each other until they met at the workplace...
But probably I would refuse to take a drug test too. But sometimes companies are between a rock and a hard place.
In a functional working environment, if someone shows up incapacitated, you would show him the door there and then. But in the dysfunctional environment that we are in, if someone shows up incapacitated and kills someone, the company can point to the drug test, claim that they have taken due care when hiring and are off the hook. This needs to stop.
Right, that's exactly the point, you don't need drug tests to find nonfunctional addicts.
I'm pretty far OT here WRT drug testing, but anyway a good HR department should be more than a cover-your-ass paperwork machine.
My father distanced himself a bit from management at the time, since he is the tech guy (he invented all the machines that the factory manufactured), and management was happy to hire locals, so many employees were hired off the street (ie: random unemployed people that reached the door and asked to do blue collar job)
Drug tests are counterproductive, because not only do they not dissuade drug use (empirically), but they push drug users towards drugs like cocaine, which are detectable in drug tests for only two days, instead of drugs like marijuana, which are detectable for several weeks.
The only drug you can really test for effectively is marijuana, and I frankly couldn't care less whether an employee uses marijuana - medicinal or recreational - in his free time, just the same way I don't care whether he drinks alcohol or smokes cigarettes.
Finally, it's nobody's business what an employee of mine chooses to do after work so long as it doesn't impact his work performance. If it does, that's reason enough to fire him right then and there, without any need for a drug test.
I'm also impressed by your assertion that employees will think, "Shit, I can't smoke weed, guess I better start doing coke!" It's like the whole "gateway drugs" thing, except he skips straight to the hard stuff because the gateway isn't available to him.
In my personal experiences, I'd have to agree with Steve and I personally would rather hire someone who has taken LSD vs someone who hasn't. To me it doesn't show irresponsibility- it shows a sense of exploration and creativity.
Exploration? perhaps, but boredom and peer pressure are more likely explanations.
As the author says, that is more or less what to expect when a company grows past a certain size.
It's human nature (not one of the high points of it), or better the nature of mature/large companies.
I'm sure there are exceptions (Google ? Facebook ?) but my personal experiences sort of confirm that.
I'm not saying that it's not possible to "thrive" in such organizations, since they offer plenty of pluses (stability, more time to adapt, resources, mobility, variety), it really depends on one's nature, and on what he is looking for.
However, as I've recently unhappily discovered, our current interview process often suggests just the opposite. As a passive candidate myself, I've actually terminated several interviews for far lesser offenses than what we are guilty of.
Things are improving quickly now that more of us are aware of what has been going on, but I'm now a bit more willing to tolerate other companies' hiring sins than I was before.
There are so few exceptions to this it's not worth worrying about.
My experience (EBRD) was that it was possible to switch from temping (got that through a friend) to contracting to employee (I turned down the last). Friends at the World Bank used a variety of methods to join, but all benefited from talking to professionals inside along the way. These tips are important, but it's far better to have the HR person know that there is existing demand for the applicant.