HR in many companies is the driver of diversity and in large or global companies there can be a whole division driving a change agenda in this space. We often see these people and teams focus on an increase of women in senior leadership roles. This is obviously an important issue and seems a no-brainer when we read articles like this: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/top-companies-with-women-on-boards-perform-better-research-finds-20150423-1mqsm2.html
So increasing women in leadership roles is not only the right thing to do but may also increase company profits. So we can absolutely see why companies would focus on this.
Then when we look at our own diversity statistics within HR we have to ask whether this is like the ‘carpenter’s house’ analogy, where we spend so much time focusing on others’ houses that we have little time to analyse or work on own house. As HR is the focus for the people activity within the business should there be a better balance given the ratios of women to men in organisations? This then leads to further questions like: “what difference, if any, would it make to a company’s ability to meet the needs of their employees and hit commercial targets if there was more diversity in our HR teams?”, “is this gender diversity in HR something we need to focus or think about at all?” and “if we had more men working in HR, what difference would that bring?”.
If there could be a significant difference, why aren’t we attracting more males to the profession?
Human resources has an ever increasing role in the commercial part of the business – it’s the place where the right people strategies, when aligned to the business strategy and then implemented in the right tone, can have immense impact on a company’s bottom line. There are significant examples of where CEOs “get” HR, so HR has a voice at the table and then profits grow. With that as a focus why wouldn’t more men see HR as a career choice? We have been for a significant time in love with the impact of HR and see it as a fantastic career choice for both men and women.
So our final thoughts – are there things that we need to do differently in the way we advertise or promote HR as a career at Universities or high schools when kids are making decisions about where they want their career to go?
We don’t have the answers just wanted to pose some questions……food for thought!
