Dec 15, 2007

Development or Ops?

A reader of the blog sent me this query. What would be your suggestion to her? Am specially interested in knowing what HR folks think :-)

Dear Sir,
 
 I am a HR Person and I would like to know in Human Resource Which is important Operations or Development? There is a big conflict in my organisation  and I have  to decide to which umbralla to choose. Pls Help with your valuable suggestion.
 
Thank you

2 comments:

  1. I feel that it would be a function of essentially two things - what is more likely to 'work' in the organization at this point and what are you better at doing. Usually, basic HR processes/'operations' have to be in place before the internal clients would take any 'development' efforts from HR seriously. So, if the basic operational stuff is not in place, people under the ‘development umbrella’ are likely to get ignored/ marginalized. However, if the basic processes are in place, and if you are good at doing 'development work' you are likely to be more successful under the development umbrella so long as your work is aligned to the needs of the organization. Of course, a basic understanding of the operations stuff is essential to ensure the implementation effectiveness of ‘development initiatives’. Often, ‘HR Operations’ is a thankless job where you get noticed only when something goes wrong!

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  2. I agree with prasad that it depends on the circumstance. Operations whilst being boring are, I belive the oil in the machine. Too many HR departments outsource this activity to become more strategic - whatever that means - and by doing so take away one key element of credibility. Development on the other hand is business critical for most but is often not understood by the CXO. This is one of the areas where predictive metrics come into their own!

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