HR: Where is the H in it?

If you are in the market for a job, you know what I am talking about. This is past the horrible experience that you have with phone service interviews. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (or SHRM) website, an HR generalist role typically includes things like creating policies and procedures; maintaining regulatory compliance, and; the administration of payroll, benefits and employee records. When you boil it down, the bulk of work that falls into HR is aimed at keeping your current, former and prospective employees from suing the company. Said differently, HR is all about risk reduction. And somebody please explain to me what the hell a "career pathing program" is. I'm not diminishing the importance of this work. A mature business must do all of these things well. Just like a mature business needs to maintain accurate and organized accounting records. But the skills and mindset of someone who thinks all day long about creating and following rules does not fit the mindset required to succeed in recruitin. The sad truth is that the "H" in HR has been missing for some time. In fact companies are nothing more than a collection of people organized around a shared set of strategies, principles, products and customers. Not processes.