HR should be buried and then given a seat on the board

Purpose – Focuses on the strategic role that human‐resource management should play to help to ensure organizational success. Design/methodology/approach – Warns managers against abdicating responsibility for leading their people, and HR specialists against empire building. Highlights how HR should support managers and people to sustain the right business culture. Findings – Advances the view that the leadership of an organization needs to involve HR and encourage it to make an enthusiastic contribution, rather than simply pointing out the problems without any strategic thinking. Practical implications – Argues that the board or leadership of an organization needs to value the strategic role HR plays and stop imposing individual measurements such as retention targets. Social implications – Highlights the difficulties of managing the current generation of workers, who generally seek to change their jobs frequently and have few qualms about challenging leaders they believe to be wrong. Originality/value – Contends that HR can help an organization to succeed, provided that all employees understand their role, work together and take responsibility for their contribution. In many cases this may mean burying HR and allowing the phoenix to rise and take a new position.