Is HR made to suffer from ‘Efficiency Syndrome’?


Reflect over emphasis on profits by investors and promoters killing functions like HR in organizations. Are you with me?

On one hand, organizations keep hauling for sustainability [long life] and in reality, they try to elbow competition for more & more profits. Is it not contradictory?  Maybe it is due to overtly use of unprescribed certain Business models who emphasize ‘Milking more & more Profits’ at the cost of sustainability unlike the RT Business Model

Such organizational dynamics often are the reason of most of functions start functioning in siloes. When companies overemphasize profits, it often leads to the erosion or outright elimination of essential functions that don’t directly generate revenue but are vital for long-term sustainability.

HR is one such function.

Wrong expectations from the ‘Right Function’ leading to its suffering from ‘Efficiency Syndrome.’

“Efficiency syndrome” in HR usually means the function is overly focused on process optimization and compliance, rather than strategic impact.

Before I move to second part of this article; let’s look at conventionality in our thinking that draws us to failure and keep HR bound to the Efficiency and the related syndrome.

Is it sales function alone that is selling the products or services? Answer is a big ‘NO’.

It is an open secret that every function is equally responsible put together need to come together to contribute to the sustainability of organizations. Any wrong rung in it, the organization cannot climb the ladder of sustainability. But ‘rungs’ are made defective by our wrong expectations.

The genesis of today’s expectations lies in the early industrialization phase when functions were created with certain deliverables due to then ‘demand-supply’ state. The situation today has changed one-eighty.

It is a known fact today that it is not the Product or Service but its ‘Effectiveness’ that is getting sold. It means to make a product or service effective, every single employee in an organization need to contribute.

 Let us look at the reasons of Efficiency Syndrome:

  • Leadership framing HR as a cost center: Pressure to cut costs and streamline processes and never been in thoughts even wildly that HR can contribute directly to Growth & Revenue.
  • Exclusion from growth discussions: HR is kept out of revenue and innovation planning.
  • Short-term shareholder pressure: Quarterly earnings targets push leaders to prioritize immediate financial gains.
  • Cost-cutting mindset: Functions like R&D, employee development, and customer service are seen as “cost centers” rather than strategic investments.
  • Misaligned KRAs: Metrics often reward revenue growth and margin improvement, ignoring intangible value creation.
  • Reactive role: HR responds to needs instead of shaping talent strategy.

This defocused approach is leading to irreversible consequences, cultural decay, brand erosion, strategic vulnerability and regulatory risks.

The million-dollar question is what needs to be done to get rid of this conditioned mindset. Very simple, a paradigm shift from what has been followed since ages, is required to look at ways & means to make every function and every individual to contribute to growth and profit.  For this some wings will flutter in despair for sure.  The first one to throw their hates in the ring will be people who got conditioned to a peculiar way of working and are not willing to change themselves. They will make all sorts of reasons not to change. But who loves changing? It is the circumstances and need that make change inevitable. Let’s do it to make our HR, Primary and really strategic. In my view some of the suggestive actions could be:

  1. Redefine HR’s Purpose:  Lets together move from “process efficiency” to “business enablement.”
  2. Introduction of Impact Metrics, like revenue contribution per HR employee, market share increase% etc.
  3. Embed HR in Growth Conversations: HR becomes co-owner of business KPIs with leadership.
  4. Leverage People Analytics: Predictive insights for attrition, performance, and workforce planning.

We at Prajjo have begin the journey. In our pursuit, we have rolled our AI-Centric, copyrighted HR solutions which can help organizations to convincingly move in the direction where it can calculate the value of its contribution to the Growth & profit directly.

You can join us in this journey. You can reach out to me at rajesh.tripathi@kenboxtech.com

 

 

 

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