The Role of an HR Consultant

What are your HR Needs?

Companies without formal HR departments rely on their management teams to establish workplace norms, oversee hiring and promotions, and ensure ethical behavior. But if management goes off the rails and there is no HR department that can (or is willing to) step in, the entire company can suffer.

Take the example of Uber. It hired its first HR professional in 2014 when it had already grown to more than 500 employees. While Uber isn’t cash-strapped, its leadership waited until it had hundreds of employees in place before hiring an HR professional because it viewed HR the way many emerging companies do: as a killjoy in a “growth-at-all-costs” environment.

Even when Uber did expand its HR department, management mostly prioritized recruitment duties over legal compliance, ethics, diversity, and other important HR functions. Tasks like addressing sexual harassment, establishing fair compensation, and accurately assessing performance were not among HR’s priorities. No wonder Uber’s high-profile HR issues eventually led to the resignation of its CEO, Travis Kalanick.