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Tom Malone, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of the HBR article "The Age of Hyperspecialization," explains why breaking jobs into tiny pieces yields better, faster, cheaper work -- and greater flexibility for employees.

This Business week article made me think how challenging and diverse can be the job of a Human resource professional. Apart from conveying really bad news—a workforce reduction or a painful reorganization—there are a few other less-than-sensational aspects of an HR career, depending on your temperament and the companies you work for. Lots of HR people I know, for instance, complain about the constant cost-cutting that turns them into the bad guys who must inform employees on a regular basis of reductions in everything from travel allowances to flavors of tea in the break room. Other HR people wish that the role they play could be more instrumental in making the company a great place to work and less focused on policy and documentation. Still other HR folks spend more time than they'd like protecting the company from employee-relations lawsuits and wage-and-hour claims. The attention which HR gets, challenges it faces and kind of impact which HR actions have on the employees in the...

HR talent and competency development has been a cause of concern for industry over the past few years and the growing requirement for quality HR professional is evident by the increasing HR attritions numbers over the last few years. It would be really interesting to analyze the HR attrition data of the organizations in India and look at the reasons for high exits. Gautam , Sanjay and Astha have already discussed this alarming trend which is eroding the credibility of HR professionals due to lack of retention plans for HR attritions. HR as a career option has evolved over the last few years and HR professionals are no more content playing second fiddle as facilitators.Mostly they are continuously struggling to keep pace with the ever growing challenge of managing operational efficiency and contain attrition. Over the years some organizations have been very successful in integrating HR practices as part of their long term business strategy and have even gone to the extent of making H...