It has been a long standing debate whether HR people or non-HR People(of course non-HR means coming from other areas of the business) should oversee the HR functions.
There are few things which need to be addressed further

1- Non-HR people may oversee the HR functions but to what extent?

2- Is it a fad or a trend?

3- Has it been tested and materialized thorugh enough scientific researches or studies?

4- Is it global in its implications?

5- One important function is succession-planning and what to do about the Succession-planning issues itself in HR department.

If the key is to run HR functions through non-HR people, then who will be the next one to head the HR department and from which department and on what grounds?

It's a real interesting question folks!

This post supports current thinking in integrated marketing communications (IMC) not only as a driver for innovations, but a well-trained, mentored employee group at all levels directly impacts the quality of customer service, because, put simply, employees interact with customers either directly or indirectly. By alerting all employees to stay attuned to the "voice of the customer", you have more input to drive innovation.

That said, I don't think that this is an issue of whether the person's background is business administration or HR, I think whoever is owning HR needs to assimulate these values into their professional life - BUT - senior management also needs to give them a seat at the table and put internal communications on their agenda. HR or or this business person needs support from middle and senior management in order to be successful, otherwise the most inspired professional will not be able to do much more than maintain status quo.

Great commentary, and great point.

I think though that this is just the tip of the iceberg. The advantage of an HR lead that is strategic in nature reaches far beyond the development of individuals. He/she can impact the vision, tactics, marketing, etc., of a company.

Ultimately the success of any company interested in growth is dependent on the proper care and cultivation of the right team.

Great food for thought though. Thanks.

I think that leaders from other functions/parts of the organization can bring new perspectives (especially internal and external customer perspectives) to the HR function in the company. They can also leverage the credibility, visibility and relationships that they have built in the organization to help the HR function better integrated, aligned and respected. To make this work, these leaders should stay in the HR role for a reasonably long period of time (e.g. at least a couple of years) and they should be genuinely interested in handling the role.

Giving the leadership of the HR function/part of the HR function to a fast-track business manager with little interest in HR - mainly as a short-term development experience for the manager (a 'toy to play with' for a little while) - before he/she can move onto bigger things can prove to be disastrous - especially for the HR function and the HR professionals in the organization.

While I agree that there is no rocket science involved in HR, I have seen that many of the decisions that an HR leader has to make often involves fine judgment - judgment which requires a good amount of HR functional knowledge and a deep understanding of the people context in the organization- in addition to business understanding and logical thinking. Usually, this requires a significant investment of time and effort. Otherwise, ‘a simplistic understanding of the domain coupled with natural bias for action’, can lead to a lot of avoidable confusion and destruction!

It would be interesting validate this commnet by comparing the role and influence of the HR function in a sample of firms with sustained high relative P/E ratio with a sample of low performers. Google versus GM comes to mind.

Should HR be run by HR...well of course it should. You wouldn't have an accounting person running the advertising or a finance guy as the CIO, so why would you put someone from outside HR in charge of HR? What has to happen is that C-Level management must see HR as a way to create a strategic advantage, in that the company who has the best (and keeps the best) talent wins. HR training, classes, metrics, etc. have been elevated in recent years as the roles of HR were becoming more and more complex. Jack Welch understood HR to have a huge impact on the business and worked hard with the department when he redeveloped GE's employee training and development and review.

To me even if you put an operations or business development person in charge of HR, if you haven't changed the internal view of HR from loss center to profit center then it doesn't matter who is running it.

In my experience with large corporate entities, HR is viewed as a cost of doing business;a support function whose business "value" is most often dictated by legal requirements surrounding managing employees.
Unless an organization moves beyond finance-directed business decisions to being consistently customer-centered with metrics and infrastructure that support such a culture, HR will be simply one more cost-center. HR professionals can help make such change happen, even lead it, and thereby demonstrate business relevance.
Just a thought.