From Compliance to Productivity: What HR’s Role Should Be

HR in the UK has grown faster than ever — but is growth translating into productivity, or creating new constraints? It’s a provocative question, but one organisations can’t ignore. 

The Sunday Times’ recent article How HR took over British business and got in the way of actual work raises a valid challenge.  

HR has expanded rapidly — there are now more HR professionals in the UK than doctors or lawyers. A rise fuelled not only by employee expectations but also by a more litigious workplace culture (with 42,000 tribunals last year alone). 

Risk and compliance are critical. They always will be. But if HR's role is seen only as a compliance function, organisations risk missing the bigger opportunity: enabling productivity and shaping the future of work. 

Because today’s workforce expects more than policies and procedures. They want flexibility, wellbeing, inclusion and purpose. The question is: how do we deliver all of this without making work more complicated than it needs to be? 

This is part of the challenge we see HR leaders grappling with right now, and includes: 

• How to apply AI and people analytics responsibly to enhance decisions, not replace them. 

• How to shift towards skills-based organisations that create agility. 

• How to design hybrid employee experiences that drive both engagement and output. 

• How to stay compliant without layering on unnecessary complexity. 

HR doesn’t have to choose between compliance and productivity. The most effective HR functions do both — they manage risk and create the conditions for people to do their best work. There are many ways HR can do this in practice — for instance, by designing employee experiences through dual lenses. For every initiative (e.g. hybrid work, wellbeing, or inclusion), consider both the compliance requirement (safety, fairness, data protection) and the productivity goal (engagement, performance, innovation). The sweet spot is where both intersect. 

Or by shifting from enforcing to enabling. Position HR as a coach and advisor who helps teams interpret compliance in ways that support outcomes — for instance, guiding leaders on how to offer flexibility within policy boundaries rather than defaulting to “no.” 

At Veran, we help clients find the right balance. That’s why our work spans employee experience design, people analytics and adoption support. Protect where you must, enable everywhere else. 

👉 What’s your view? In your organisation, is HR enabling productivity — or getting in the way of it?