Constantly explaining what HR pros do?

When you tell friends and family that you work in HR, do they ever ask, “Why?” or, “What do you do?” If so, you’re not alone.

Just ask Juicy. In the Pulitzer-winning play Fat Ham, a modern rendition of Hamlet, Juicy is pursuing an online degree in HR—and his family doesn’t seem to understand why. Juicy, who is Black and queer, faces constant questions throughout the play about his sexuality and his career choice. “What are you going to do with a human resources degree?” his family asks, to which he responds, “human resources.”

Holly Walker, a real-life HR pro and talent strategist, can relate to Juicy’s experience. “I think HR has a pretty antiquated reputation amongst people who don’t work in HR,” she told HR Brew. “Forty years ago.. it [was] just this back room, where maybe people processed your payroll.” While the function has changed dramatically over the last several decades, she said, much of society still sees it in that light.

Walker shared with HR how she strives to bridge the disconnect between the perception and realities of HR.

Mom, this is what we do. Walker has worked in HR for nearly a decade, starting as a recruiter at Girl Scouts of Connecticut before working as a talent strategy analyst at Indeed, and, most recently, as a talent acquisitions operations manager at LCMC Health, a healthcare system.

When she’s questioned about her job, she explains HR in terms of three core pillars: “Recruitment or talent acquisition…and then you’ve got your ‘core HR,’ so that might be your payroll, but also onboarding, and finance, and training…and then the third pillar is your organizational development, or L&D,” she said. “Those three pillars work together to make up all of HR,” noting that some variation may exist depending on the size of the company.

Might not be ‘sexy,’ but can lead to success. Walker believes some of the confusion stems from a perception that HR doesn’t contribute to business or lead to individual success.

“I do think that people look at this, as ‘It’s not a revenue-generating part of business. It’s like the poor man’s arm of business,’” she said. “People tend to look down on the HR professionals, because you’re not generating. You’re not sales, it’s not finance, it’s not sexy.”

But as people pros know, HR contributes a lot to the business, and those who do the job can, like any professional, experience a lot of upward mobility.

“If people enter the workforce at entry-level positions, and are trained, and coached, and they develop their skills…They have pathways within a company and the infrastructure to move up in their position,” she said. “They might be able to move into a different economic class than they came from, or where their parents came from.”

While Juicy wasn’t able to change his family’s minds about HR before the curtain fell, maybe you can make some progress by taking a page out of Walker’s book.