McKinsey Classics | September 2022

Getting beyond bureaucracy in human resources

Corporate HR processes are famously complex and time consuming, and corporate HR departments are famously overstaffed. One reason for the bloat might be that many companies have forgotten the business rationale for HR processes. But there’s an antidote to massive HR systems, questionnaire overload, and multipage templates: understanding the function’s strategic goal.

High-quality, timely information about talent pools and gaps, for example, is a competitive advantage that HR is uniquely able to provide. A grocery manager in a global retailer may have proved her value in Argentina, say, just as an important job opens up in Mexico. An oil and gas company could have both a leader who’s running out of growth headroom in the Middle East and a need for someone with similar expertise for a bigger role in Houston. And as digitization becomes more important to cars, an automaker that has long recruited large numbers of mechanical engineers may not have enough software experts or know where to find them. HR can ensure that these connections get made and help executives seize the moment. 

It’s easy to say that HR should get out of the way, but the pendulum can swing too far in that direction. Read our classic 2015 article “Getting beyond bureaucracy in human resources.”

—Roger Draper, editor, New York