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270 Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 2009 47(3)

Irreconcilable differences? Strategic human resourcemanagement and employee well-being

Michelle BrownUniversity of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Isabel MetzMelbourne Business School, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Christina CreganUniversity of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Carol T. KulikUniversity of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia

The transition from ‘personnel’ to ‘human resource management’ took place inAustralia in the latter part of the twentieth century. The change in nomenclaturereflects a change in the nature of the work: from an employee-centred role to amanagement-centred role. In this paper we examine the relationship betweenthese two roles, with a particular emphasis on their compatibility. Using interviewdata we find that HR managers devote considerable time to employee-centredactivities. HR managers philosophically reconcile these activities with theirresponsibilities as a strategic partner by identifying the benefits of their employee-centred efforts for management. HR managers do, however, experience someoperational challenges when they attempt to be a strategic partner andsimultaneously promote employee well-being.

Keywords: employee advocate, employee well-being, HR profession, strategic partner

Correspondence to: Dr Michelle Brown, Department of Management and Marketing,University of Melbourne, Parkville Vic. 3010, Australia; fax: +613 9349 4293; e-mail:[email protected]

Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources. Published by SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi,Singapore and Washington DC; www.sagepublications.com) on behalf of the Australian Human ResourcesInstitute. Copyright © 2009 Australian Human Resources Institute. Volume 47(3): 270–294. [1038-4111]DOI: 10.1177/1038411109106859.

This research was supported by grants from the Faculty of Economics and Commerce,University of Melbourne and the Australian Research Council (Discovery Project 0664752). Wethank the HRmanagers who participated in our research interviews for their time and insights.

The job title of those organisational members charged with the managementof employees has changed considerably over time in Australia: from ‘welfareofficers’ in the early 1900s, to ‘personnel managers’ in the 1950s to the 1980s,and then to ‘human resource managers’ in the late twentieth century. Thechange in nomenclature reflects a change in the nature of the work: from anemployee-centred role to a managerially focused role. Wright goes furthersuggesting that the change in the focus of the work has now made HRmanagers the ‘agents of capital’ (Wright 2008, 1068). Welfare officers andpersonnel managers had an employee-centred role and focused on servicingthe workforce (Beatty and Schneider 1997) and ensuring the well-being ofemployees. The role also included the creation and administration of systemsthat served employees including pay systems and training and developmentprograms (Mohrman and Lawler 1997). Beyond providing support services,the personnel manager sought to promote the fair treatment of employees inthe workplace (Ulrich et al. 2007). Promoting fair treatment required thepersonnel manager to walk a fine line between the needs of the employee andthe organisation (Renwick 2003). Ellig (1997) goes further suggesting that thefocus was on the employee to the exclusion of business needs.

In contrast, modern day human resource (HR) managers undertake astrategic partner role with management. HR managers work with manage-ment to analyse and devise solutions for organisational problems. They areinvolved in strategic planning and aligning HR (both vertically and horizon-tally) with the organisation’s mission and strategic goals with the objective ofmaximising employee contributions to the overall performance of the organ-isation (De Cieri and Kramar 2003; Rynes 2004; Schuler 1990).

In this paper we examine the activities of contemporary HR managerswith a view to determining the extent to which they continue to undertake atraditional employee-centred role and its compatibility with their strategicpartner responsibilities. There are two competing perspectives on the compat-ibility of these roles. One perspective suggests that the roles are compatible andcan be undertaken by the same individual. According to Ulrich andBrockbank (2005b, 201), HR managers are able to see ‘the world throughemployees’ eyes’ and act as their representative, while at the same time lookingthrough customers’, shareholders’ and managers’ eyes and communicating toemployees what is required for them to be successful in creating value’. Analternative perspective states the roles are inherently incompatible (Beer 1997;Fisher, Dowling, and Garnham 1999; Rynes 2004). Beer (1997) argues that theemployee-centred and strategic partner roles require people with very differentoutlooks and skills. In the employee-centred role the HR manager mustsupport the needs and goals of employees (Ahmed 1999) while in the strategicpartner role the HR manager must contribute to the organisation’s perform-ance and mission. Focusing on the strategic partner role has the potential topromote credibility with top management but HR managers ‘may find them-selves neglecting legitimate employee needs’ (Peterson 2004, 195).

SHRM and employee well-being 271

Our study is based in Australia where the role of the HR managercontinues to evolve. The concept of HR first developed in the United Statesin the 1960s and 1970s (Brewster 1995) and subsequently spread to Australia,though Kramar (1992) suggests the take-up rate was relatively slow. Thisslower take-up rate may mean that the commitment to employee-centredactivities (the focus of the former personnel managers) has endured. HRmanagers in Australia may, therefore, be attempting to reconcile theiremployee-centred and strategic roles. But Fisher, Dowling, and Garnham(1999) believe that the employee-centred activities are likely to be secondary tothe strategic partner responsibilities for HR managers in Australia.

Debate about the role of HRmanagers has been ongoing (for example, seeLegge 1978; Ritzer and Trice 1969; Watson 1977; 1986). Earlier debates focusedon the role ambiguity experienced by HR managers. Legge (1978), buildingon Ritzer and Trice (1969), suggested that HR managers experience consider-able role ambiguity as they try to identify their specific contributions that aredistinct from the roles of line managers or top management. Watson (1977;1986) also identified multiple challenges for the personnel manager, includingthe level of authority attached to decisions made by personnel managers. Ourfocus is on the compatibility of an employee-centred and strategic partner roleusing interview data collected from Australian HR managers. The debateabout role compatibility is particularly salient in Australia where changes inthe federal system of industrial regulation have altered the institutionalframework that establishes and reviews terms and conditions of employment.The shift from centralised to enterprise to individual bargaining encouragedthe Australian HR profession to reflect on its role and priorities as it now playsa more pivotal role in the establishing employment conditions at the workplacelevel (for example, see Mithen 2005).

Our paper responds to calls for researchers to devote ‘far more effort tounderstanding what HR managers actually do and think about whenconfronting dilemmas that pit short term profits against employee welfare’(Rynes 2004, 210). Understanding the activities and priorities of the contem-porary HR manager is important for two reasons. First, the activities of thecontemporary HR manager have implications for the attraction and retentionof new people to the profession. Hammonds (2005, 40) suggests that newentrants to the profession are attracted by a desire to help others. Hammondsnotes that people enter the field of human resource management with the bestof intentions: ‘they like working with people and they want to be helpful’.However, these ‘do-gooder’ intentions are seen by some HR managers to bemisplaced. ‘When people come to me and say “I want to work with people” Isay “Good, go be a social worker”’ (HRmanager quoted in Hammonds (2005,40). If the employee-centred role is no longer undertaken, many students ofhuman resource will experience dissatisfaction with their career choice.Current HR managers already talk about facing a ‘bleak future’ (Francis andKeegan 2006, 242). HR managers in the Francis and Keegan (2006) study felt


‘let down’ by the profession’s failure to realise how important the employee-centred role is to a ‘fully rounded HR function’, leaving some HR managersto contemplate career changes. Second, understanding the activities and prior-ities of the contemporary HRmanager has implications for the content of prac-titioner and academic programs that are intended to provide the skills for asuccessful career in HR. Many writers (for example, see Ulrich and Brockbank2005a; 2005b) suggest that potential HR managers need training in thelanguage and practice of business in order to be an effective business partner.But if HR managers still undertake an employee-centred role they will alsoneed skills to support employee well-being, for example communication andcounselling skills.

In the next section we provide a short review of the evolution of the HRprofession in Australia. We demonstrate that the first members of the profes-sion undertook an employee-centred role until the rise of HRM from the 1980sthat introduced the strategic partner role. We also review the debate about theconsequences of a shift to the strategic partner role, with a particular emphasison the extent to which it takes employee well-being into consideration. Wethen outline the data collection and analysis techniques employed and reportthe results of our interviews. The paper concludes with a discussion of theconceptual and practical implications of our study and identifies some issuesfor future research.

We need to begin our analysis of the compatibility of HR roles with a reviewof the development of HR in Australia. The concept of HR first developed inthe United States in the 1960s and 1970s (Brewster 1995) and reflected thevalues of American society (Guest 1990). As this section will show, the devel-opment of HR in Australia reflected a distinctive set of political, socio economic,cultural and institutional factors (Budhwar 2004).

Historical review

The first individuals with principal responsibility for employees had a sig-nificant welfare orientation (Fisher and Dowling 1999, 1). The appointmentand training of industrial welfare officers was the result of an Australiangovernment initiative. The onset of World War II in 1939 stimulated thegrowth of firms in the manufacturing industry which required a newapproach to the organisation of labour and management of production (Fisherand Dowling 1999). This welfare role was ‘directed chiefly at improving thewar effort by minimising the human problems which reduced efficientproduction’ (Smart and Pontifex 1993, 1). Industrial welfare officers focused on


From employee advocate to strategic partner in Australia:History and analysis

improving physical working conditions, employee counselling, induction andskills training (Smart and Pontifex 1993).

Industrial welfare officers formed their own professional body (thePersonnel and Industrial Welfare Officers Association) in January 1943. Theassociation focused on personnel and industrial welfare, with a particularemphasis on the physical and operational aspects of people management atwork (Smart and Pontifex 1993). However, industrial welfare officers experi-enced role conflict due to the uncertainty surrounding whose interests theyshould represent. Industrial welfare officers were ‘regarded somewhatcontemptuously as “the workers’ friend” and were not readily accepted by linemanagers’ (Smart and Pontifex 1993, 2).

In the 1950s the expansion of the Australian economy, especially in themanufacturing industry, facilitated the growth of the personnel function.Personnel management moved from a welfare focus to one based on ‘admin-istrative processes to improve efficiency’ (Smart and Pontifex 1993, 2).According to Dunphy (1987, 4), personnel managers sought to ‘select anddeploy people to maximise productivity, maintain predicable and reliable oper-ations and to achieve cost efficiency’. The rise of scientific management andthe human relations school also played a role in this change of emphasis: bothmovements highlighted the importance of work processes and employee skillsfor organisational efficiency. The emphasis was now on ‘employment andtraining, industrial relations and safety at the expense of the primarily welfare-oriented aspects’ (Smart and Pontifex 1993, 2).

The work of the personnel manager/department began to evolve in the1960s and early 1970s as a consequence of labour market and other changes.First, labour shortages focused organisational attention on managementpractices that would boost employee motivation and job satisfaction (Smartand Pontifex 1993). Second, the changing expectations of workers and organ-isations encouraged a review of current practices. Young workers wereavoiding ‘dull, boring, repetitive, manual and clerical work’ (Dunphy 1987,42), while organisations (both public and private) were promoting multi-skilling and flexibility in order to cope with new technology and new organ-isational structures. Third, the work redesign movement played a role inmoving the agenda and approach of personnel managers in Australia. Dunphy(1987, 43) notes that the main purpose of the work redesign movement was to‘increase productivity, to raise quality, to maintain work motivation and jobsatisfaction’. To achieve these objectives, the focus was on ‘enlarging andenriching work’. For organisations this meant creating bigger and more chal-lenging jobs, and these jobs required more sophisticated selection procedures(for example, psychological testing) and career management practices toidentify talent and develop employees. These demands were a boon forpersonnel departments, which became more proactive as they focused theiractivities around work design issues (Dunphy 1987). Finally, the use of ‘green-field’ (new) work sites also encouraged the linking of corporate strategy and



staff planning. Organisations were able to design and implement HRMpractices that suited the new sites without the need to modify establishedpractices as was the case with ‘brownfield’ (existing) sites. These contextualchanges encouraged personnel departments to undertake non-administrativetasks such as selection, career planning, training and appraisal (Dunphy 1987).Personnel departments effectively moved away from their traditional, purelyadministrative role to a role that included ‘manpower planning and organisa-tional review and analysis functions’ (Dredge and Smith 1982, 35).

The shift to HR was facilitated by the advent of a federal Labor govern-ment in Australia in the early 1980s with its focus on social reform. TheHawke Labor government came to office with the Prices and IncomesAccord: a document signed by the Australian Labor Party and the AustralianCouncil of Trade Unions that set out the priorities of an incoming federalLabor government across a broad range of economic and social policy issues(Deery et al. 2001). The Accord directed attention to issues such as equalopportunity, occupational health and safety and industrial democracy andprovided a central place for the Australian Industrial Relations Commission(AIRC). Subsequent AIRC national wage-case decisions linked pay increaseswith changes in work practices so that employees achieved significant payincreases through agreements on multiskilling and award restructuring, bothof which had an impact on organisational work practices and training needs(Dunphy 1987).

An increase in international competition cemented the position of the HRmanager as a strategic partner in Australian organisations. Competitivepressures required the HR function to be ‘strategically aligned and focused onthe bottom line’ (Fisher and Dowling 1999, 2). The Karpin Report expressedconcerns about the weakness of management in Australian organisations, aweakness that would need to be overcome for Australian organisations toreach world best practice by 2010 (Enterprising Nation 1995). The KarpinReport encouraged organisations to review and improve the employeemanagement skills of their management team. This task was undertaken byHR departments and highlighted the importance of HRM for organisationalperformance.

Changes in the HR profession are reflected in corresponding changes injob titles and work priorities. Smart and Pontifex (1993, 10) first noted thechange in nomenclature in Australia from employee relations to HR while asurvey of Australian Human Resource Institute (AHRI) members providedquantitative evidence of the take-up rate of the new title for the personnelfunction. When respondents in a 1995 survey were asked to report the title ofthe department in which they presently worked, 35% responded ‘humanresources’ while only 10% responded ‘personnel’ or ‘industrial relations’(Dowling and Fisher 1997). Two years later, 54% of respondents had ‘humanresources’ in their personal job titles and only 10% had ‘personnel’ or ‘indus-trial relations’ in their titles (Fisher, Dowling, and Garnham 1999).


These surveys also suggest that the new breed of HR managers hadpriorities that differed from those of their predecessors. Dowling and Fisher(1997) found HR managers were prepared to adopt a strategic focus (73% ofsenior HR respondents strongly agreed that HR policy should be linkedwith organisational strategy and 67% strongly agreed that ‘HR policy areasneeded to be more carefully integrated’). A second survey two years laterreinforced these findings: ‘A total of 65% strongly agreed that HR isexpected to make an improved contribution to organisational effectivenessand 63% strongly agreed that HR programs need to add value to the organ-isation’ (Fisher, Dowling, and Garnham 1999, 508). These priorities havenow been translated into practice for many HR managers. AnotherAustralian study found that 49% of senior HR managers are heavilyinvolved in decision-making across a broad range of strategic issues(Sheehan, Holland, and De Cieri 2006).

This brief review demonstrates that the people management function inAustralian organisations originated with a focus on employee-centred activ-ities. The shift to HR with its emphasis on the strategic partner role is acomparatively recent development (1980s–90s) and many of those currentlyemployed as HR managers will have entered the profession when the focuswas on employee-centred activities (Sheehan, Holland, and De Cieri 2006).The current generation of HRmanagers is therefore likely to be attempting toreconcile their new responsibilities as a strategic partner with their original jobexpectations that included an emphasis on employee-centred activities.

Irreconcilable differences?

The compatibility of employee-centred and strategic partner roles is central tocurrent debates in HR. We now briefly review practitioner and academicreactions to the transition from personnel management (with its emphasis onemployee-centred activities) toHR (with its emphasis on being a strategic partner).

The work of industrial welfare officers and later of personnel managersfocused on the day-to-day problems and needs of individual employees(Conner and Ulrich 1996). As a consequence, employees in these jobs were seenas having a short-term administrative and reactive focus (Fisher and Dowling1997). Critics dismissed personnel managers as focused on ‘tea and sympathy’(Beckett 2005; Pickard 2005) and derided the personnel manager’s job as a‘house keeping role’ or a ‘clerk of the works’ (Dowling and Fisher 1997, 2).Others described personnel managers as ‘in-house Socialists focused on feelgood events’ (Ellig 1997, 91).

These labels reflect the challenge faced by personnel managers to demon-strate their impact on organisational performance. Sheehan, Holland, and DeCieri (2006) argue that each part of an organisation must directly add value tothe organisation’s bottom line. As a consequence, the HR function is underpressure to justify itself and identify its contribution (Becker et al. 1997).

A strategic approach offered ‘the reassertion of the fundamental importance of“people management” but also genuine access to the room from which all toooften the personnel specialist has been excluded: the boardroom’ (Keenoy 1990, 3).However, embracing the opportunities offered by strategic HR came at a costfor HR managers: they had to ‘relinquish any claim to be the guardians ofhumane human resource management’ (Keenoy 1990, 4), an activity that wasoften the most rewarding aspect of the job for incumbents (Francis andKeegan 2006; Hammonds 2005).

There has been considerable debate in both academic and practitionercircles about the level of importance that ought to be attached to employee well-being in HR. On the one hand, supporters of the strategic emphasis resisttalking about employee well-being, believing it to be equivalent to ‘draggingthe profession back to the dark ages of welfare work’ (Beckett 2005, 18).According to Ellig (1997), the term HR was developed by those who wantedto distinguish themselves from personnel and identify with the more importantrole of business partner. In this role, the HR manager identifies with manage-ment as a partner in delivering value to the organisation (Francis and Keegan2006, 233). Under this perspective, employee well-being is not a priority for HRmanagers: these are issues for social workers or other caring professions.

On the other hand, critics of the strategic partner role regard HR ashaving an inappropriately narrow and economic view of the employmentrelationship (for example, see Keenoy 1990; Peterson 2004; Rynes 2004), whichunderestimates the value of employee well-being. Simmons (2003, 131)believes that HR is now ‘paid to take care of’ the negative implications foremployees of management strategies to increase competitiveness and share-holder value. Renwick (2003, 355) believes that HR managers who are undulyfocused on a strategic approach ‘miss a great opportunity to re-define whothey are and what role they play in organizations’. Lansbury and Baird (2004,50) suggest that by identifying with management’s agenda in recent yearsthere is now a ‘crisis of trust among workers in HR practitioners as beingeither willing or able to safeguard their interests’. The real significance ofignoring employee well-being, according to Hope-Hailey, Farndale, andTruss (2005), is that it can have a negative effect on the sustainability of highorganisational performance.

This debate about the importance that ought to be attached to employeewell-being is reflected in the mixed reactions of HR managers to the changedrole of the personnel manager. Caldwell (2002, 694) suggests that practitionerreactions have varied from ‘unalloyed enthusiasm and pride at the reinvig-oration of the profession in the face of new business realities, to moral indig-nation at the loss of the apparently paternalistic social values that oncecharacterized the personnel function’. Ulrich and Brockbank (2005b, 219) donot believe that HR managers need to make a choice about what role to play.They need to play multiple roles and ‘when HR professionals master theseroles and play them well, they add value’.


Given our study investigates the role of HR managers and how they reconciletwo potentially conflicting roles, we used a qualitative research method.Interviews allowHRmanagers to tell their story in their own language (Glaserand Strauss 1967) giving the researcher rich descriptive details. Quantitativeresearch has been useful for assessing the extent to which the people manage-ment function has changed in title and activities but leaves unanswered thequestion of how HR managers undertake their roles and reconcile potentiallyconflicting priorities. A semi-structured interview is an effective tool to capturethe complexities of this process (Patton 1987).

The interviewees were identified through a variety of methods: some fromindustry contacts, some from cold calls and some through a snowball technique(whereby one interviewee is asked to nominate other potential interviewees(Sudman 1976)). We also recruited participants through an advertisement in anelectronic newsletter that was sent out to HRmanagers in Australia. The elec-tronic newsletter was useful in identifying respondents across Australia. Wecontinued to interview until the data we were collecting revealed no additionalinsights (Miles and Huberman 1994), a point achieved by the nineteenthinterview. Thirteen female and six male HRmanagers were interviewed froma variety of industries (the following classification is based on the AustralianBureau of Statistics Standard Industry Classification system): seven worked ineducation, four in finance and insurance, three in health and communityservices, two in communication services, one in manufacturing, one in propertyand business services and one in transport and storage. Our interviewees wereall senior HR managers and some were responsible for the HR unit in theirorganisations. The organisations our interviewees worked for ranged in sizefrom 80 to 32 000 employees. Given their size, all of these organisations hadestablished HR units responsible for overseeing people management activities.We refrained from asking respondents their age. However, since the inter-viewees were all senior HR managers with many years of experience, it isreasonable to assume that their average age was in the forties or fifties.

Each manager was interviewed for about one hour in his or her office or anearby conference room. Those located outside Victoria were interviewed bytelephone. The interviews were semi-structured: the researchers developed aninterview protocol which facilitated a focused interaction. Interviewees wereaware of the purpose of the interview but did not receive the interview protocolin advance. When interviewees have time to reflect on their responses, there isan opportunity to censor their final responses, reducing the quality of the data(Shillito 1992). Additional questions were introduced during the interview toprobe for more detail (Neuman 1997). Each interview was recorded digitallyin order to ensure a high-quality recording, which assists the transcriptionprocess leading to better quality transcripts (Modaff and Modaff 2000).Transcripts were compared to the digital recordings as a quality control check.


Method


Interview procedure

The essence of an employee-centred role revolves around helping employees.For the purposes of our study we define an employee-centred role as helping‘distressed employees’ (when an employee goes to HR because they arefeeling upset or concerned about something with the hope that HR will beable to provide some support and advice). We ensured the distinction wasclear to our respondents by contrasting such employee-centred activitiesagainst purely administrative issues (‘when an employee comes to you witha very practical problem: How much annual leave have I accumulated? Howdo I apply to take my long service leave? How do I change my bank accountdetails?’).

We used a critical incident technique (Flanagan 1954) when discussingthe employee-centred work of the HR manager. A critical incident techniqueinvolves asking respondents to discuss a specific event rather than makinggeneralisations. We were looking for specific examples in order to ensure ourinterviews were anchored in the reality of actions taken rather than therhetoric of what HR managers might feel obliged to report (Hunt and Boxall1998). We asked HR managers to describe a specific instance in which theyhad to deal with an issue brought to them by a distressed employee (withoutrevealing any identifying information). We asked them to describe the eventthat caused the distress, the resolution of the issue, and who was involved inthe resolution process. We then asked our interviewees to estimate the totalamount of their time spent in dealing with issues brought to them bydistressed employees. The interview concluded with a series of questionsabout the interviewees’ strategic responsibilities and activities to identify anypoints of conflict between their employee-centred activities and their role asa strategic partner.

We first conducted two pilots of our interview protocol to ensure that theinterviewees fully understood the questions (De Vaus 1993). As the protocol didnot change as a result of the pilot interviews, the pilots were included in our dataset. Three of the authors and one paid research assistant conducted the inter-views. Interviews were initially conducted by two or three researchers. Aftereach of the first three interviews, the researchers engaged in debriefing sessionsto minimise interviewer bias in future interviews and facilitate data analysis(Patton 1987). Each of the remaining interviews was carried out by only oneinterviewer.

Method of analysis

One of the authors and a research assistant skilled in qualitative researchmethods independently content analysed each interview transcript. The researchquestions and the literature review suggested initial classifications of the contentof the interviews (Miles and Huberman 1994), but as the process continued


the categories become more numerous and differentiated. For example, wedeveloped categories for the conditions under which an HRmanager would orwould not deal with an issue brought by a distressed employee.

Our coding relied on the constant comparative method in which newlycoded text was compared with previously coded text to ensure that the newcodes maintained their integrity (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Miles andHuberman 1994). Once the data were coded we searched the data manuallyfor a more fine-grained understanding of the relationship between anemployee-centred role and a strategic partner role. We searched for evidencethat enhanced our understanding of how these two roles were undertakenby HR managers. Further, we examined the data with a view to determininghow HR managers reconciled their responsibilities as a strategic partner withtheir responsibilities for employee well-being.

The results presented here outline themes in the data, where a theme repre-sents the views of multiple respondents. We describe the theme pertaining toeach issue being investigated and then we provide one or two examples to illus-trate the theme.

Our results are organised around three main issues. First, we assess theextent of, and limits to, employee-centred activities by Australian HRmanagers.Second, we report how respondents, who undertook both roles, reconciledtheir employee-centred and strategic partner roles. Finally, we examine thepractical challenges for an HR manager when undertaking both employee-centred and strategic partner activities.

Contemporary HR: From employee-centred to strategic partner?

The interview data suggest that HR managers do perform employee-centredactivities. The majority (52.9%) of the HR managers reported that they spentapproximately 10–30% of their time dealing with issues brought to them bydistressed employees. Fewer than 12% of the HR managers stated that theyspent less than 10%, and 29.4% stated that they spent more than 60%, of theirtime on the issues brought to them by distressed employees. The data thereforesuggest that HR managers’ responsibilities still encompass looking afteremployees’ well-being. As the following quotes demonstrate, this is eitherbecause employee well-being is part of their role in the organisation or becauseof the HR manager’s natural inclination to be employee-centred.

It will come to you. People come to you because of your role in theorganisation. (HR manager #9, female, property and business services)

Results


I’m getting more and more people coming to me. So the word spreads andso by reputation they come to you for assistance and the same would behappening to [colleague’s name]. He’s a good bloke, so go and see him. So itdepends on the grapevine and they know somebody who was helpful and sodirect them up to that particular individual. (HR manager #7, male, transportand storage)

The issues of distressed employees can find their way to the HR managerbecause they impact on an employee’s work performance. In one case,the distressed employee was revealing his personal problems to clients(HRmanager #1, female, health and community services). In another case (HRmanager #2, female, finance and insurance) work colleagues of a distressedemployee lodged complaints with the HR manager.

When HR managers undertake an employee-centred role, they prefer toplay the part of a ‘neutral party’ in the resolution process. Respondentsindicated that they took on the issues of distressed employees in order topromote fairness and justice in the workplace.

But in dealing with these sorts of things I think from the point of view of aHR manager as a sort of a – you know as a neutral player in these sorts ofthings, you’ve really got to keep a very open mind, even though you’ve got asuspicion which way it might go. (HR manager #3, male, manufacturing)

We are third party neutral, running it for both the person who is making thecomplaint as well as the other person involved in the complaint itself. (HRmanager #6, female, finance and insurance)

The willingness of HRmanagers to engage in employee-centred activitieswas sometimes constrained by the circumstances of their workplace and theirworkload. For instance, HR managers spend less time on employee-centredactivities because employees have little access to an HR manager and the HRmanager is not known to the employees, as the following quote illustrates:

because I just don’t have a lot of that day-to-day contact so I don’t build upthat rapport with individual staff members …[in] this role, because people aregeographically spread out, [I] just don’t get to see them, so I’m not someonethat’s in their mind in terms of when they come up with who they should talkto. (HR manager #3, male, manufacturing)

The size of the organisation and of the HR department influenced theextent to which our interviewees were involved in the employee-centred activ-ities. HR managers in smaller organisations (or with previous work experi-ence in smaller organisations) felt that it was inevitable that their role wouldinvolve dealing with the employee-centred activities. Another factor that influ-ences the amount of time spent on the employee-centred activities is the


workload of the HR manager. Time to talk is a significant constraint for bothemployees and the HR manager:

[in] organisations of under a thousand people, it’s very hard to stay out ofthat role, because usually they don’t have a lot of HR people, and yeah,there is a conflict and it was one of my frustrations I’ve taken in my last tworoles, because they’re strategic, and they ended up not being [strategic]because there are a whole lot of unresolved things that were below thatlevel we just discussed, which actually threaten your business. (HR manager#9, female, property and business services)

I have been involved in doing that type of work in my previous positionand when I took on the one with my current organisation, I started off inHR and I sort of explained to the organisation that all of the obligations tohave as an employer, which includes, obviously, the soft side, and if there’sonly one person, then, by default, you’re it. (HR manager #8, female, healthand community services)

The HR team doesn’t have time and the individual doesn’t. (HR manager#6, female, finance and insurance)

Not all HR managers want to undertake an employee-centred role – aminority only become involved once the issue could not be resolved by the linemanager. Alternatively, the HR manager would become involved in order toavoid the involvement of the union.

My role is really to focus on the more strategic imperatives in theorganisation. Now, that’s not saying I don’t get my hands dirty, but the modelthat I’m trying to operate here is that line managers really are the HR peoplein the organisation, and they’re the ones that ought to be dealing with thissort of stuff. (HR manager #3, male, manufacturing)

But you know our view is that we should provide the first point of contact.People should feel they can come to us and we will champion their cause,even though it may be something that is against their manager, because if wedon’t support them, we will drive them to the union. (HR manager #7, male,transport and storage)

But a small proportion of the HRmanagers interviewed went further andobjected to the ‘social work’ aspect of employee-centred activities. A few HRmanagers were critical of those in the profession who wanted to work in HRin order to focus on the employee-centred role.

You’ve got people who are being attracted to HR either because they can’t getinto anything else, they don’t want to do a business related course, they don’twant to do arts and they have this thing about I think I want to help people.(HR manager #6, female, finance and insurance)


And I don’t think a lot of them fully understand being able to conceptualise,being able to work in an analytical way and get all of the issues without justbeing the, well, how are we going to help people? If I interview people for ajob, ‘why do you want to work in HR?’ I like working with people and youthink of course, another one. (HR manager #12, female, education)

In sum, the data indicate that most of our HR managers are activelyengaged in an employee-centred role. The amount of time spent on these activ-ities varied and was typically determined by the organisational context. Only aminority of our HR managers were critical of the employee-centred activitiesof the profession.

Reconciling the employee-centred and strategic roles

We earlier reviewed debates about the compatibility of an employee-centredwith a strategic partner role. The data reported in this section show that ourHR managers believed that spending time and resources on distressedemployees would benefit the organisation in terms of staff retention andcontribute to its reputation as an ‘employer of choice’. HR managers do nothave to make a choice between employee-centred and strategic partner activ-ities. Undertaking employee-centred activities is incorporated within thestrategic partner role: employee-centred activities are strategic because theycan generate benefits for the organisation. Hence, it is appropriate for an HRmanager to undertake employee-centred activities.

It IS strategic, this IS strategic! (HRmanager #4, male, communication servicesresponding to a question about whether dealing with the issues of distressedemployees conflicts with the strategic side of HRM)

I think that if you do not provide that support and you get a disenfranchisedworkforce, I don’t care how good your strategy is, you’re not going to get there,so I think the two do go hand-in-hand. (HRmanager #7, male, transport andstorage)

Beyond keeping valued staff in the organisation, undertaking anemployee-centred role was seen to promote a higher level of employee engage-ment with the organisation.

I think soft HR and strategic HR go together: if strategic HR is about talentmanagement and employee engagement, because then that fits. (HR manager#6, female, finance and insurance)

If you don’t have the hearts and the minds of the people with you, then youare going to have a lot of counterproductive things happening, aren’t you?(HR manager #14, female, education)


The nature of the organisation also influenced the extent to whichemployee-centred activities could be positioned as strategic. In organisationsthat are particularly labour intensive, such as health and community services,issues with staff take on a greater importance.

... because we are in the people business and our staff really, if they arevulnerable, if they go down, then the business does as well. I can actuallymake a business case for the soft side. (HR manager #8, female, health andcommunity services)

Investing time and resources into distressed employees was seen asstrategic because it would create tangible outcomes for the organisation. Therespondents identified higher productivity as one of the benefits for theorganisation. Not only are distressed employees often not working produc-tively, they can also prevent other employees in the organisation from beingproductive.

It’s like ripples in a pond. They don’t just affect one person or two partiesinvolved, it affects people around them and that makes it – and that’s myline to people, you know, this is not just about you, this is an organisationalissue and it’s clearly of a higher – you know, got broader implications. (HRmanager #9, female, property and business services)

Out of every ten people in work, there will be one, two, maybe three, on anygiven day that are sub-optimally performing because they’ve got a personalproblem, they’ve got a problem with their children, their adolescent son is aproblem, they’ve got an alcoholism problem, they’ve got a domestic violenceprogram, they’ve got some other problem. And if we can help deal with that,we will raise productivity. It’s not only the person that’s affected, they’llspend half the day talking to their work colleagues about their problems, soyou end up with six people, you know, distracted by the problems of oneperson. (HR manager #4, male, communication services)

An employee-centred approach was also seen to have a positive effect on organ-isational profitability by promoting employee trust and organisational loyalty:

I think she became a real champion for [our organisation], and no doubt ifher paths came across someone else who was in difficulty, whether it be awork related issue or a personal issue – which sometimes the two do conflict –where she would say well, look, you can trust the people at employee relations.Go and speak to them. (HR manager #7, male, transport and storage)

Interviewees commented that dealing with the issues of distressedemployees could save the organisation money. Cost savings occur by

avoiding some employment-related costs such as sick leave and employmenttermination:

If they’re not distressed, they’re more productive. If they have processes tonot get to that point, then it’s more economical for the [organisation] thatwe don’t have to then spend all this money on WorkCover or we lose themthrough sick leave or that they terminate and that we lose their services.(HR manager #12, female, education)

The HRmanagers in our study formalised their employee-centred role byestablishing policies and procedures for managing the issues of distressedemployees. They regarded this approach as a way to promote fairness oftreatment and process in the workplace.

We have processes around investigation, processes around support mechanisms,you know, issues around, you know involving – as you say it’s not just oneindividual, it’s two individuals, with a very different perspective and a differentsense of reality and yes, you’ve got that whole area about, you know what’s thelegal responsibility of the employer, what are the procedural fairness issues andthen you’ve got, as you say, the emotional support issues about dealing withthose sorts of issues. (HRmanager #6, female, finance and insurance)

The problem with a lot of these issues – in fact it could be the big problem –is that people tend to react on a moralistic or emotional level, and they don’tfollow a process, a clear process, a fair process. (HR manager #16, female,education)

Practical challenges

The data so far suggest that HR managers do not regard employee-centredactivities as being in conflict with their responsibilities as a strategic partner. Infact, many managers argue that an employee-centred role will further thestrategic objectives of the organisation. Nevertheless, the data provide evidenceof practical and personal challenges in performing both roles for a minority ofour respondents. One challenge is when employees seek out HR as a ‘soundingboard’. Approaching HR with an issue but not lodging it formally potentiallyraises significant legal problems for the organisation. Employees are sometimesjust looking for a sympathetic listener to air their issues but once aware of anissue, HR may be obliged to follow formal procedures – even against thewishes of the distressed employee. When one HRmanager asked an employee:

Are you reporting this to us formally because we have a process? She said, ‘No,I don’t want [the organisation] to do anything, but I just want you to be awareof it’. So we were in a bit of a dilemma then, that from a health and safety


point of view, we’ve got an obligation to provide a safe workplace. Should wecomply with the employee’s request, or should we do something that I guess iscontrary to that request? (HR manager #7, male, transport and storage)

Mostly because of my role, but there are some people who know me orknow of me who other people would advise. You know go and see [namewithheld], she’ll sort it out, but I think they’re not – I don’t really want tobe just someone that listens and makes people feel better because they’vebeen listened to. I want to be able to do something as a result. I want to beable to offer some useful information that is going to help them resolve it.So you can get friends and family to listen to you but they can’t do oftenanything in the way of offering advice as to how you might solve theproblem. (HR manager #16, female, education)

A second challenge is ambiguity about who the HR manager represents.Issues often find their way to the HRmanager because both a manager and anemployee seek the intervention of a third party to resolve the issue.

Are we representing the business or are we representing the employee? And,in some instances, actually we were prepared – we were going to go into the[Australian Industrial Relations] Commission. …I was going to represent theemployer because I had better skills to do that, depending on what the issuewas, and somebody else who used to work with us, who is gone now, wasgoing to represent the employee and were going to take it in as a dispute to theCommission, by agreement. (HR manager #7, male, transport and storage)

A third challenge is the need to be objective in performance evaluations.HRmanagers are often involved in the evaluation of employees’ performance.However, providing support to employees means that HR managers are alsoaccumulating information about employees that can potentially influence theHR manager’s assessment of their performance.

Professionally, it causes me to have a clouded judgment of people becausewhen they’re in here with me, talking about something, I see a differentlight as to whether – when they’re out there, interacting in the normalorganisation, it really frustrates me to see the two-faced sort of actions ofsome of the people I talk to. I know a lot, so that frustrates me. SometimesI form personal opinions and make judgments that affect my decisionmaking. (HR manager #15, female, communication services)

I try not to get too involved in personal stuff with people, because I find it isvery hard then to do performance management. (HR manager #1, female,health and community services)



A fourth challenge is to demonstrate the economic benefits of employee-centred activities for the organisation. In an organisational context that attemptsto measure the contribution of functions to the overall performance of the organ-isation, spending time with employees does come at a cost. For example, the HRmanager is unable to demonstrate any measurable outcomes, as they are merelyreturning the distressed employees back to their original productive status.

I suppose the only tension that I see is that issue about the planned and theunplanned where you’ve got as a business partner you’re required to meet awhole lot of, you know, criteria and report on different things, and thatsofter side is something that’s very difficult to report on in terms of outcomesand dollars and those sorts of things. (HR manager #1, female, health andcommunity services)

So it’s hard to identify real outcomes. It’s not that people are producing moredollars, or they’re more productive or better than they were. It’s just aboutmaintaining the status quo. (HR manager #2, female, finance and insurance)

The central issue in our paper is the compatibility of an employee-centred anda strategic partner role for HR. The majority of our HR managers reportedspending some time undertaking both roles, though a majority indicated thatthey spent less than a third of their time on employee-centred activities.Notably our respondents did not report any difficulties engaging withemployee-centred activities and their role as a strategic partner at a philo-sophical level. This compatibility appears to result from three factors. First, ourHR managers regarded the employee-centred work as consistent with theirstrategic responsibilities. They saw the employee-centred activities as gener-ating organisational benefits including retention and employee engagement/productivity as well as enhancing the reputation of the HR department.Second, the issues brought to HR by distressed employees did not consume themajority of an HRmanager’s work time. HRmanagers did not mind spendingtime on these issues, as they found this aspect of their role professionally andpersonally rewarding. Third, our HR managers did not attempt to deal withall issues brought to them by employees: they dealt only with those that theyfelt qualified to assist with and outsourced the remaining issues to people/unitsformally equipped to provide professional assistance (usually an employeeassistance program). Issues with a clear work connection (such as relationshipswith supervisors or work colleagues) were usually dealt with by our HRmanagers. Complex personal issues such as divorce, depression and drug abusewere typically outsourced as these were seen to require professional skillsbeyond those acquired as part of HR professional or educational programs.

Discussion and conclusions


Among our interviewees, however, we find some evidence of practicaldifficulties in reconciling the two roles such as when employees use HR as a‘sounding board’ about issues that have legal ramifications. HR managers alsoreported practical challenges when conducting performance managementinterviews, particularly when information provided by an employee outsidethe performance management process might be important in the subsequentevaluation of his/her performance.

These findings have important implications for our theoretical under-standing of the roles of the contemporary HR manager. Our results showthat practitioners have merged these two roles by redefining the employee-centred role to be part of the strategic role, though researchers still tend todistinguish between these two roles (for example, see Ulrich and Brockbank2005b). The redefinition is also noteworthy as the traditional employee-centred role was intended to promote employee well-being. ContemporaryHR managers undertake an employee-centred role, but it is now accom-panied by an expectation of augmenting organisational performance. Thisnew definition is much more managerially focused, which is consistent withthe view that the strategic partner role has made HR managers ‘agents ofcapital’ (Wright 2008, 1068).

HR managers have played a critical part in the redefining employee-centred activities as strategic through a process of job sculpting. Jobsculpting involves modifying the job to fit the person rather than expectingthe person to always fit the job (Butler and Waldroop 1999). It can involvechanging work practices to accommodate both individual and organisa-tional goals. HR managers, who were initially attracted to the professionbecause they liked working with people and wanted to be helpful(Hammonds 2005, 40), have redefined the employee-centred role to bestrategic. They have done this in order to satisfy their ‘emotionally drivenpassions’: to undertake in those activities that engage them and keep themhappy and fulfilled at work (Butler and Waldroop 1999, 152). Redefiningemployee-centred activities as strategic has enabled HR managers todistance themselves from earlier views of employee-centred activities aswelfare work and to undertake activities that they enjoy, while having thesupport of their employing organisations.

By defining employee-centred activities as strategic, HR managers mayalso be reinstalling ‘barriers to entry’ into the profession. Wright (2008, 1082)argues that the move to a strategic partner role has resulted in a ‘dilution ofoccupational identity by muddying the boundaries of HRM expertise’.Managers from a wide variety of functional backgrounds possess the businessskills necessary to undertake the responsibilities of an HR manager under-taking strategic partner activities. Barriers to entry into the profession are rein-stalled, however, when managers need not only business skills but also skills indealing with distressed employees.


HR policy and practice implications

The merging of the employee-centred and strategic partner roles has implica-tions for assessing the performance of the HR function. The metrics typicallyapplied to assess the impact of a strategic partner role are financial oraccounting measures (for example, the rate of return, see Belcourt 2001).Returns from an employee-centred role can generate organisational benefitsbut may not be adequately captured by narrow accounting measures given thetime delays between providing support to an employee and their return to fullproductivity. Or more broadly, it is difficult to place an accounting value on areputation as a caring organisation. In addition, a combined employee-centredand strategic partner role might be of value in recruiting and retaining the ‘best’people in the organisation but that value is difficult to measure in dollar terms.

This redefinition of the role of HR has implications for the recruitment ofpeople into the profession. Research in the careers field has consistently demon-strated the importance of compatibility between people and their work environ-ments (person–environment fit; e.g., Ehrhart andMakransky 2007). Good fit canresult in a range of positive outcomes such as job satisfaction, oganisationalcommitment and performance (Ehrhart andMakransky 2007). The challenge forthe HR profession is to ensure potential recruits are aware that HR is a helpingprofession but that this aspect of the work is tempered by the need to ensure acontribution to the overall performance of the organisation. HR educators carrya responsibility to ensure that their students graduate with the skills andknowledge necessary to be a strategic partner as well as the communication andcounselling skills necessary to undertake the employee-centred activities effectively.

Our findings raise questions about the most appropriate operationalstructure for an HR department. A focus on strategic HRM is often accompa-nied by the outsourcing of some specific activities such as recruitment, selectionand payroll and/or the application of HR information technologies (Lawler andMohrman 2003).While outsourcing and ITmay free up the time of HR to workon strategic issues, it also has the potential to isolate HR from the employees ofthe organisation and limit opportunities to provide support to employees.Organisations may also enlist other resources to ensure that distressed employeesreceive support: line managers (Hope-Hailey, Farndale, and Truss 2005), unions(Francis and Keegan 2004) or an employee assistance program (EAP). Australianevidence suggests that line managers are not willing or capable to assume thisrole (Kulik and Bainbridge 2006; Teo 2002). Line managers are not motivatedto take up these issues, as they regard them as peripheral to their immediatework demands. Another group that could supply employee-centred services aretrade unions (Francis and Keegan 2004). A few of our interviewees, however,indicated some reluctance to have unions provide these services.

Our study demonstrates that employees have personal and professionalissues that impact on their work lives. Acknowledging employee issues will


help in the identification of the most effective operational structure forproviding the necessary support. An option for larger organisations is todesignate a particular HR manager with a primary responsibility for dealingwith the issues of distressed employees. Alternatively, the job description for allthe HR managers in an organisation could be amended to include responsi-bility for dealing with the issues of distressed employees (Kulik et al. in press).

Limitations of the present study

The sample size for our study is relatively small and our respondent recruit-ment strategy focused on organisations with a full-time HR presence (typicallyfound in larger organisations). These characteristics lead to two potential limi-tations. First, we may over-represent the use of some techniques used by HRmanagers, particularly the use of an EAP. The costs associated with seekingoutside professional support may be prohibitive for smaller organisations,which are underrepresented in our sample. Second, given the relatively largenumber of small workplaces where HR is a not a full-time responsibility foranyone in the management team (Barrett 2002), we may have overrepresentedthe extent to which employee-centred activities are performed in Australianorganisations. Future research therefore should focus on the compatibility ofan employee-centred and strategic partner role in small workplaces. Smallbusiness researchers (for example, see Deery, Walsh and Knox 2001) havesuggested that the small size of some workplaces contributes to a verysupportive employment relationship while other small workplaces are ‘bleakhouses’ that emphasise employee control rather than support.

Our sample has a disproportionately large number of interviews (sevenout of nineteen) with HR managers in the education sector relative to thissector’s representation among employers in the Australian economy (Deeryet al. 2001). The overrepresentation of higher education reflects the impact ofthe snowball approach used to identify interviewees (HR managers in oneeducational institution were more likely to identify an HRmanager in anothereducational institution). This is not a serious problem as our focus was on theroles HR managers undertake or are expected to undertake in organisations.The role expectations of HR should, in principle, be similarly understood byHR practitioners regardless of the industry in which they work. However,future researchers should attempt to replicate our findings with a more diversesample of Australian HR managers.

Our interview protocol did not distinguish between the role of HR in formu-lating as opposed to implementing strategy, a distinction that Hunt and Boxall(1998) regard as important. It may be that our respondents were involved in theimplementation of strategy and found their employee-centred activities morecompatible than if they were involved in strategy formulation. An HRmanagerinvolved in the implementation of strategy is likely to have more regular contact


with employees and as part of that contact provide support to employees. AnHRmanager who is principally involved in strategy formulation will have less contactwith employees as his/her role involves meetings with members of the seniormanagement team to discuss high-level business-related information. Futureresearch should examine the compatibility of an employee-centred role withdifferent types of strategic partner roles.

Implications for future research

Our paper focused on those currently employed as HR managers. These HRmanagers have redefined a focus on employee well-being as consistent with astrategic partner role by linking employee well-being with its impact on organ-isational performance. We encourage future researchers to address three issues:first, are there any time limits to the employee-centred role? It is unclear howlong an HR manager will deal with a distressed employee before withdrawingsupport. Our interviews show thatHRmanagers recognise the costs of employee-centred activities but engage in these activities because they believe there arebenefits of doing so for the organisation. At some point, however, the costs ofsupporting a distressed employeemay outweigh the benefits. Knowing how longit typically takes to move through the break-even point and how this break-evenpoint varies based on the nature of the issues causing employee distress would tellus about the quality of the support provided to distressed employees.

A second issue deals with the differential support that HRmanagers mightgive to various employees. As organisations continue to assess the impact of indi-viduals (via performance management systems) we might anticipate that not allemployees will receive the same level of support from HR, as some employeesgenerate greater value for the organisation than others. As Beatty and Schneider(1997, 29) noted, HR should ‘care and feed the core workforce, that componentof the work force that staffs the organisation’s core competencies’ as these groupsare a source of competitive advantage. However, creating classes of care mayundermine the effectiveness of an employee-centred approach.

Third, debate about roles tends to assume that HR managers have a choiceabout the role they prefer to undertake. However, as Procter and Currie (1999,1079) pointed out, the role HR can play is ‘the result of a continuous process ofnegotiation with other groups’. The employee-centred role is only an option ifemployees are prepared to engage withHR. Future research should examine theeffectiveness of the HR manager in the performance of their employee-centredrole. Researchers should seek an employee perspective on the approachability andeffectiveness of HR when it undertakes employee-centred activities, as previousresearch (Wright and McMahan 2001) assessing the effectiveness of HR hasdemonstrated the value of collecting data from users of the HR system.

The role of an Australian HR manager has become increasingly complexover time as the number and range of roles has expanded. Two of these roles,

employee-centred and strategic partner, would appear to be a potential causeof difficulty but contemporary Australian HR managers have redefined thework of the former to be consistent with the latter role. The merging of thetwo roles may be evidence of the flexibility of the HR profession to transformitself sync with organisational dynamics in order to maintain HR’s relevance.The next step is to evaluate the implications of this flexibility from the perspec-tive of HR’s stakeholders.

Michelle Brown (PhD, Wisconsin) is an associate professor in the Department of Management &

Marketing, University of Melbourne, Victoria. Her research interests are in the areas of pay and

performance management systems, employee involvement and organisational cynicism. Her research

seeks to understand the unintended consequences of HR management policies and practices.

Isabel Metz (PhD, Monash) is a senior lecturer at the Melbourne Business School, University of

Melbourne, Victoria. Her research interests are in the areas of gender and careers, work and family, new

employment relationships, and group work in the classroom. Current projects focus on the influence of

individual, organisational and social factors on women’s advancement in academia and industry, toxin

handling by HR professionals, and the development of psychological contracts.

Christina Cregan (PhD, London School of Economics & Political Science) is an associate professor in

the Department of Management & Marketing, University of Melbourne, Victoria. Her research interests

are concerned with disadvantaged groups in the workforce and labour market. Her current projects

include a study of immigrant textile outworkers and an investigation of the impact of paid work on

disabled persons and their caregivers.

Carol T. Kulik (PhD, Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is a research professor in the School of

Management, University of South Australia. Her interests encompass cognitive processes, demographic

diversity, and organisational fairness, and her research focuses on explaining how human resource

management interventions affect the fair treatment of people in organisations.

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reading 9a

Documents

human resource managers

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employee advocate

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amanagementcentred role

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focused role