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I was in a meeting today where one of the people present said something along the lines of... "... in our world as HR professionals ..."
An HR professional? Is that me? I didn't recognise myself in that description at all. I've always (well since I realised I wanted to teach) thought of myself as a "learning professional". Where learning is something you do for its own sake and for the sake of the individual.
In my head, HR is something that's done on behalf of the organisation. It's how you manage your Human Resources - just as you might manage paperclips. (Ouch - that's perhaps a bit of a jaundiced view!)
So - am I a learning professional - or an HR professional? I suppose it depends on the context, and who I'm talking to. I have to take both viewpoints. Especially as it's normally the client organisation (and often the HR department) that's paying my wages. But, with my learning professional hat on, I'm always on the side of the learner - trying to make sure that what I do will be of real benefit to them as individuals (at the same time as helping the organisation achieve its aims).
An interesting balance to work on...
2 comments
I’ve often struggled with this one, too. I find it interesting that, if you’re looking for a job in learning and development, you set the search criteria in your chosen site to look at HR jobs. I don’t see why. I’m certainly not an expert on employment law or any of those things. In the management of human resources, the HR folks might identify a need for L&D and call us in, just as they might call in the experts to meet their need for a payroll system, that doesn’t make us HR professionals.
This is a pet bugbear of mine, the rare good HR department are part of strategic services, good learning or training departments are operational, we are in the business of implementing strategic agendas, and we should be cross functional not just part of HR.
