A dangerous misconception of human resource management

Dear Editor,
In his comments on my recent letter to the media on repatriates, ‘Kassem’, a regular commentator on letters to the editor, declared: “HRM job is a piece of kake” compared to others.
I assume that ‘kake’ was a typo for ‘cake’, as in the usual expression of simplicity: ‘a piece of cake’. I also hope that he did not deliberately mean our colloquial miasmatic ‘kaka’, or even the New Zealand parrot, because some HRM officials might be talking like the bird.
In any event, as an experienced and seriously committed HRM professional, I take umbrage at such an uninformed, unbridled affront to a critical and demanding profession.
Kassem might be excused if, as it appears, his experience was limited to the simple ‘record keeping’ aspects of HRM; however, he and others like him need to know that Human Resource Management is as serious a discipline as any other. Its primary base is in the behavioural sciences, and it is as demanding as any other discipline. Professionalism in HRM require tertiary qualifications and post-graduate training lasting as long as any other discipline. The fact that it is a new professional discipline relative to engineering, medicine, law etc does not diminish its status, or demands, or impact on organisations and businesses.
The business world, the fields of institutional, governmental and non-governmental organisations, are increasingly realizing the uniquely important and critical role of the human factor in their various spheres of operation. Those who fail to do so soon realize the folly of their insensitivity.
I would not be surprised if the foregoing is seen as self-serving, but I cannot ignore the years of positive feedback I have had from colleagues in other professions virtually across the world, who have acknowledged the valuable and critical inputs from me and teams of other HRM professionals that I have had the pleasure of leading.
Besides, I do not think that the type of derogatory, belittling comments from Kassem should go unchallenged in light of the value-added necessarily associated with the HRM profession.

Sincerely,
Nowrang Persaud