What's the difference between HR and People Ops?
- Claire Baker
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Controversial opinion: Alla y'all have HR and People Ops backwards.
And that's why you aren't getting the results you expect or the respect you deserve.
I got into a comment debate yesterday.
Them: HR is contracts, payroll, labor law, risk management. People Operations is employee experience, engagement, development, retention. Me: You're doing it wrong. You're ALL doing it wrong.
People sometimes use the terms HR and People Ops interchangeably. But when they do differentiate, they put the wrong people in the wrong seats.
🤔 What is operations?
Google says it's designing, planning, and controlling the systems that produce goods and services, transforming inputs like labor and materials into valuable outputs.
Think: Processes like hiring, onboarding, offboarding, payroll, performance reviews...
🤔What is resource planning?
Google says it's the strategic process of identifying, scheduling, and allocating an organization's resources—people, time, technology, and budget—to complete projects efficiently. (Em-dashes courtesy of Gemini)
Think: Job reqs, employee relations, resource planning, human capital management
In short: Operations lays the track. Resource planning drives the train.
If you put People Ops into positions that are subordinate to their HR counterparts,
if you have the people whose job is to stay on the rails into a position where they have to lay the track,
their solution will be to have everyone push wheelbarrows.
All enforcement, no facilitation.
The original insight Google had with People Ops was that you could run a people org like a software product.
Define the inputs and outputs
define the desired results
find the most efficient way for information to flow through the system
so that navigation is intuitive.
Thus, you need fewer people to keep users (in this case, employees) on the rails.
It's architecture before enforcement.
A system resistant to entropy.
Have you ever talked to a Google Customer Support rep?
Do they even exist?
Do you even care?
In HR school, they teach you stodgy old business concepts from the Peter Drucker and John C. Maxwell era of business. When technology didn't control the flow of information through nearly every organization.
People pushed wheelbarrows because wheelbarrows were all they had.
These days, your waiter makes you order through a QR code.
Technology facilitates everything in your business (even when it's overkill).
The inputs and outputs are known.
But the world has changed. And your HR department needs someone who thinks like a systems architect shaping your org.
Not a hall monitor.
Anyway, Krista Lane, AnnE Diemer and I talked about the value of HR certifications in a recent episode of HR Peep Show. If you enjoy debates like this, you might want to give it a listen.
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