PART 1
Based on your experience, to what extent do you agree or disagree with Hammonds’ arguments and why?
Hammond has some good points in his arguments. HR does get a lot of grief from all parties. They are there to support you if things are not going as expected on both ends either employer or employee. They have to be the middle person and solve all the issues that they can to help build the company up. It seems that employers use HR to handle the firing and hiring of employees and they are not used effectively in any other way. They are not given the opportunity to do good for companies and at times hurts them by firing very good employees for no good reason. HR does not get enough opportunities to show how they can help the company grow. HR should know about business, I agree with that, you have to understand how things work in the company to help it grow. HR is there to protect the company’s assets  not the employees, they are at times made to make up things to help the company and make the employee look bad.  
In your opinion, who is responsible for HR not reaching its full potential in general? Who is responsible for HR not reaching its full potential in your organization?
In my opinion HR is only as good as the management in the company. If you have a good management team then HR will help the company and grow with it as well. Management does not give HR the opportunity to use business skills to influence the company growth. Management does not give HR the means to learn the business like they should and employees think they are the enemy due to the things they are made to do with the employees. In the small business I am in I am the HR person per se, the owner tells me what she wants and I have to relay this to the staff and make sure they are doing it. I also give her ideas and she will say no they are not good and move past what I say. She holds the business back with some of the things she does or has me say and do. 
After reading both articles, do you think your employer should increase, decrease or outsource HR roles and functions and why?
Reading both articles I feel like employers should outsource HR, it is more economical for businesses to do this. With covid things are changing all around us and pretty soon computers and outsourcing will be what most businesses will be doing.  With outsourcing HR, the employer will see that HR people are also business oriented as well as handling things that are put in front of them. “Advances in technology have led to the automation of certain procedures once performed by dedicated members of the HR team. Freed up, these team members have more time to focus on adding value to the business and driving strategic change” (Vaughn, 2018), 
resources:
Hammonds, K. H. (2005, August 5). Why we hate HR (Links to an external site.). Fast Company. Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/53319/why-we-hate-hr (Links to an external site.)
Fast Company Staff. (2005, August). Why We Hate HR. Fast Company; Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/53319/why-we-hate-hr
Vaughn, T., (2018), What is the Role of Human Resource Management in an Organization,  https://www.poppulo.com/blog/what-is-the-role-of-human-resource-management-in-an-organization
PART 2
Based on your experience, to what extent do you agree or disagree with Hammonds’ arguments and why?
The article written by Hammond (2005) states,”HR people aren’t the sharpest tacks in the box. We’ll be blunt: If you are an ambitious young thing newly graduated from a top college or B-school with your eye on a rewarding business career, your first instinct is not to join the human-resources dance.” I can’t entirely agree with this statement. I believe that there are different levels of employees in any role, strong and weak performers. The human resources department at my current organization is fantastic. They all come from large healthcare organizations and have brought their years of experience to our small community hospital. We are lucky to have them. When we need support with employee behavior issues, they quickly jump in and guide us to handle the situations. They also have creative and unique ideas to recruit in this difficult post-pandemic time and have successfully implemented them. 
Based on what you have learned so far, how can HR act as a strategic business partner in general? How can HR act as a strategic partner in your organization?
HR can act as a strategic business partner by using their business minds and skill-sets to evaluate and create solutions. Taylor (2021) states, “Understanding business at depth means understanding the dynamics within an industry that breed success. Awareness of how the current workforce performs stems from monitoring performance on individual and corporate levels.” Human resources meet weekly with the executive and director teams (I am one of the directors), and we talk about outside influences that affect recruitment. We brainstorm to offer innovative solutions to increase the applicant pool in these challenging times. Since May 2021, we have expanded our applicant pool by 35%, exceeding the goal of 25% that we initially set. 
After reading both articles, do you think your employer should increase, decrease or outsource HR roles and functions and why?
Both articles shared many challenges that organizations face with their human resources departments. I am lucky to have one that is high functioning and is involved in strategy for recruitment and development of our employees. In the article written by the CEO, Taylor, he discovered that human capital access had been the most significant barrier to growth than having access to financial capital (2021). We as a healthcare system have struggled in 2021 to recruit employees, but with the creative thinking and collaboration with our human resource team, we have narrowed the margin of recruitment needs. Our employer should continue to offer support and education to our current human resource team and continue growing it and keeping it in-house. For us, it has been a great team!
Hammonds, K. H. (2005, August 5). Why we hate HR (Links to an external site.). Fast Company. Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/53319/why-we-hate-hr
Taylor, J. C. (2021, September 22). HR MEANS BUSINESS: As the pandemic raged, HR professionals maintained, restored, and revived workplaces all over the world to bring business back from the brink. HRMagazine, 66(3).