Dorothy Dalton

In the space of a few weeks, we have seen a cultural pile-on against HR which is getting bigger by the day. I vowed I wouldn’t fuel this particular fire, but it’s becoming never ending. And as you know, I was never backward at coming forward. HR has always been a corporate scapegoat, but the movement has been gathering momentum in recent months. A big splash came from Ryan Breslow, speaking at Fortune’s Workforce Innovation Summit.

The career advice and recruitment industries love a good “memable” myth and for more than a decade, the monster of choice was the ATS, the faceless, automated gatekeeper supposedly binning 75% of resumes, before any human laid eyes on them. The stat spread everywhere, in LinkedIn posts, coaching webinars, and even on mainstream TV, accompanied by an “ATS-proof template” sales pitch.

The hallmark of most organisational business models has been consistently based on one thing - time as a benchmark of worth. The most valuable person is the one who arrives earliest, stays latest, and offers 24/7 availability to their employer. It’s a myth that has survived all eras of business evolution from the industrial revolution, when workers were paid by the hour to post-pandemic workplaces.