Empathy with experience vs apathy being best of breed

Our HR team asked us to read the book Get rid of the performance review, by Samuel A. Culbert.  That book has a lot of bad mouthing of existing HR practices :-) BTW I will post my review about the book in another post.

Now getting back to my observation while reading that book which was also triggered by a discussion with a family friend who is in the HR team of a large IT Services company.


Hiring an experienced HR manager who does not understand your company vs promoting someone who has been an employee all along as HR manager has a huge difference. The first one knows industry best practices and knows how things are in other companies. He ends up being more mean and will keep the company's prospects foremost.

However the one that is promoted from down the ranks, understands the nuances of the company culture. The later one may lack knowledge of the best practices followed in the industry. However his ability to work with the "HRed" is surely better and can help create a conducive environment that helps build a great company.

So if you want to be a people friendly company, then you know what you should do.

But more importantly weigh your options well when choosing between experience over best of breed.