The HR Myth

HR is the villain in almost every bad workplace story. It's rarely the one who wrote it.Fewer than half of employees believe HR acts in their interest. Managers use it as a dumping ground for conversations they don't want to have. Owners treat it as a cheap legal shield. HR absorbs the blame for all three, every day, because nobody agrees on what the function is actually for.The HR Myth names the reason why, and gives it a name of its own: the Fifth Seat. Four seats at the table make competing claims on HR - the employee's, the manager's, the owner's, even HR's own - and none of them is the seat HR is actually assigned to hold. Only the organization is.Written by a 25-plus-year HR executive who puts his own worst calls on the page alongside everyone else's, this is the book for HR professionals tired of carrying blame that was never theirs, and for the managers and owners who are, without realizing it, the reason HR keeps failing.Whose seat is HR actually being asked to sit in? Ask it once, and you won't stop.