Prejudice against the HR function has led to HR directors being seriously under-represented on the boards of the UK’s largest public companies, with less than 1% boasting a top job.
According to research undertaken by HR recruitment agency, Ortus, only five of the 595 board directors working at the country’s leading FTSE 50 firms have a background in HR.
Stephen Menko, Ortus’ director, branded it “astonishing” that, even though HR directors were pivotal to an organisation’s growth and long-term success, only a tiny minority had a board-level presence.
“Failure to look after the HR functions of a business has serious consequences, but there is an ongoing sense of prejudice in the UK that HR is less strategic than other support functions. It’s a very misguided way of thinking,” he said.
Nonetheless, those HR directors that do make it to the board can expect to draw a good salary. Those lucky individuals are seeing pay rises of 6.5% to an average of £853,000 against a national average of more like 1.8%, according to VocaLink’s FTSE 350 Take Home Pay Index, which was released today.
