Interview with Jean-Pierre Basilien, director, social dialogue and HR organization expertise center, Entreprise & Personnel

Jean-Paul Basilien thinks that HR directors aren’t participating nowadays in the management of work organizations, the evolution of organizational structures and the creation of ergonomic schemes. They rely on strategies proposed by consultants, like for example the implementation of matricidal structures.

This is due to the legal pressures imposed in HR management. Consequently, companies are recruiting on the HR positions, people specialized in law. Organizations aren’t searching any more a manager or a psychologist for their HR director position.

More than that, the development of complicated HRIS tools modified the role of the function. HR departments aren’t motivated to bring solutions, because technology goes first. HR teams are isolated from people they manage, being prisoners of administrative processes and procedures.

The individual approach to the HR management didn’t prove its effectiveness. The psychological and social troubles are so frequent, that we demand ourselves about the relevance of the individual HR management.

“HR managers must go out their offices in order to evaluate the organizational health” (Jean-Pierre Basilien)

Sandrine Foulon, Fanny Guinochet
Source : Liaisons Sociales Magazine/ March 2008