83% of HR professionals believe HR’s is suffering from a tarnished reputation

The report, which polled members of the 30k-strong HR Ninjas community, discovered that 83% of HR professionals believe their profession is viewed negatively by employees. The report also revealed negative employee interactions with HR were the core driving force of this damaging perception, along with the strong belief that HR teams were perceived as overly bureaucratic.

In addition, the report discovered:

Manual processes and unmanageable workloads are the biggest barriers to success for HR professionals

54% of HR professionals rarely or never receive recognition for their efforts

Over half of HR professionals have considered quitting the profession

61% of HR professionals believe managing processes fairly and transparency is the key to improving a negative image.

Speaking about the report, Paul Bauer, Cezanne HR’s Head of Content said that “Our survey clearly revealed HR professionals feel they’re not trusted or understood by other employees. HR is being perceived as the home of bureaucrats and the right hands of senior leadership, only there to make and enact the ‘difficult’ decisions. But in reality, this misconception is hiding the truth.”

Paul added that “HR departments are influential voices in the C-suite, working hard to create workplaces that employees enjoy being in. However, suspicion of HR erodes trust among both employees and managers, leading to resistance when HR wants to implement new policies or deal with sensitive issues. If HR wants to remain seated at the boardroom table, it must address this long-standing and damaging image problem, fast.”

You can download the full report and actionable insights by following this link.