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As PR disasters go, this one couldn’t have been more embarrassing: A company that advises others on HR matters (Bright HR), was itself recently at the centre of its own employee discrimination case – where an employee who had lost her job while being on maternity leave was offered a derisory role when her leave ended. Bright HR – unsurprisingly – lost.
Apart from all the many uncomfortable details that the case threw up (including employee, Sarah Lindup, reportedly being “laughed at” for wanting to return to her old team), what some say the tribunal adds to, is a debate that’s been running on and off for years – whether it’s about time HR should be properly regulated.
Why? Well, in her summing up, employment judge Abigail Holt said: it was “irrational” for Bright HR not to redeploy their award-winning web team member, and it’s this that some have jumped on – seeing it as the latest in a long line of bad judgement-call cases, where anyone (let alone an HR professional) with an ounce of common sense would have known straight away that the decisions HR made were wrong. Much of the commentary around this case in particular was simply this: that to your ordinary Joe on the street, what happened was counter to basic HR law, and Bright HR shouldn’t even have let the case go to tribunal.
HR making ‘bad’ decisions
Proponents of regulation (see below), see this an yet another example of HR practitioners making quite obviously ‘bad’ and ‘unprofessional decisions’ – decisions which if the line of responsibility was drawn back in other professionals, would see them either disciplined and required to take more training or simply struck off, and not able to practice again.
What’s clear is that unlike in HR, in last few years, whole other professions have been forced to demonstrate ever-increasing levels of professionalism, sector knowledge, and compliance to it. Following the Building Safety Act of 2022, for instance, every building surveyor in the country has been subject to mandatory registration with the Building Safety Regulator. Part of this is an onus on them to demonstrate competence through approved assessment schemes.
Meanwhile, all practicing RIBA Chartered Members (typically architects), are required to undertake a minimum of 35 hours of relevant continual professional development (CPD), each year to maintain professional competence – of which at least 20 hours should be spent on ten mandatory RIBA Core Curriculum CPD topics. In fact, in accountancy, law, healthcare, education, social care, transport, medicine, aviation, and many professional business services, oversight by a regulator is the norm. These regulators ensure individuals working in their sector have the necessary qualifications and/or experience to practice their profession well. They also make sure the people these professionals interact receive a level of professionalism they deserve and are protected against mal-practice.
So isn’t it about time HR – a distinctly less controlled profession – was regulated too?
HR Grapevine decided to established three different views: a ‘yes’, a ‘no’ and a ‘maybe’.
But what are your thoughts? Please do share them too:
YES:
Marc O’Hagan, director p3od
“Regulation in HR was a topic we recently devoted a whole whitepaper to – more as provocation, or a call to arms – to discuss, what is our view that HR has not kept up with changes that are happening in the workplace.
“The fact is, anyone working in HR can claim to be an expert in their field, but all they might need to show for it is an awareness of the odd legal update and maybe the odd CPD session. They haven’t had to maintain their skills, nor are they required to update them to new thinking, everything from new understandings in behavioural skills in leadership, to wellness and wellbeing. There is a learning deficit, and we’re allowing the HR profession to de-skill itself. If this happened in almost any other sector, those working there would be deemed as not having the necessary knowledge or expertise to practice.
