Last January, APEC (the French executive employment agency) published a study on how French executives perceive HR, and I’d like to take this opportunity to revisit it. Let’s first look at what the study tells us before considering what constructive conclusions we can draw from it.
In brief:
- The HR function is mainly perceived as an administrative service: although well regarded for payroll and leave management, it remains largely unrecognized for its role in the professional development of executives.
- HR professionals are recognized for their interpersonal skills (listening, availability), but their influence and strategic legitimacy remain limited, particularly at key moments in employees’ careers.
- HR tools have been modernized and are better perceived since the health crisis, but they improve the technical aspect without transforming the relationship between HR and managers.
- Managers express clear unmet expectations: career support, assistance with managerial changes, and responses to challenges related to quality of life at work and flexibility.
- A cultural and relational repositioning is necessary: HR must move away from an execution-focused approach to become credible partners, grounded in the realities of work.
Satisfaction is rising but limited to administrative tasks
- 61% of executives say they are satisfied with HR management in their business. This is a 3-point increase since 2022… but enthusiasm is lacking.
- This satisfaction is mainly based on the administrative role: 81% of executives see HR primarily as a management service (payroll, leave, etc.).
- Recognition of their contribution to professional development or skills enhancement remains marginal: less than half see any real value in it.
A critical view: the HR function is “tolerated” as long as it stays within its remit
HR is available but lacks influence
Managers recognize the human qualities of HR:
- 73% find them available, 67% responsive, and 64% attentive.
- However, only 55% consider them transparent, and only 59% find them useful.
The critical view: the relationship between HR and managers is often cordial, but perceived as lacking engagement. HR is present but not always relevant, and struggles to be credible at key moments in professional life.
HR tools are improving, but remain peripheral
- 70% of executives say they are satisfied with HR tools (HRIS, interviews, training, etc.), a significant increase since 2022.
- This improvement is attributed to post-COVID modernization, particularly in relation to remote work.
The critical view: tools are not a lever for transforming the HR function as such. They facilitate access to the service, but not relationships or trust.
An expectation: becoming a career partner
- Only 53–54% of executives believe that HR can help them think about their career or acquire new skills.
- This figure has not changed since 2022.
- Career policies are judged more harshly than training, recruitment, or administration.
The critical view: the strategic core of the HR role—supporting career paths and building the skills of tomorrow—is perceived as lacking. The challenge is not technological, but cultural and relational.
New expectations that have yet to be addressed
Managers expect HR to provide:
- Greater transparency in processes (particularly recruitment)
- An active role in managerial transformation
- Concrete responses to issues surrounding quality of life at work and flexibility
A critical view: HR often appears to be lagging behind structural changes in the workplace. It risks losing control over key issues if it does not take back.
Recognized usefulness, questioned ambition
This study conducted by Apec and ANDRH in January 2025 tells us that executives are generally satisfied with their HR department… but especially when it stays in its place. That is, in administration. Payroll, leave, formalities. For everything else, it’s vague or even useless.
HR: good customer service… but what for?
HR is considered to be available, responsive, and fairly attentive. That’s not nothing, but it’s not enough. A role can be enjoyable without being recognized as legitimate, and that’s precisely where the problem lies: only 53% of executives believe that HR can help them advance their careers. Just over half, and that figure isn’t improving.
In other words, HR is perceived as technical support, not as a lever for development. It provides a service, but it doesn’t command authority; it assists, but it doesn’t enlighten; and ultimately, it follows without driving change.
A misunderstood distance
This paradox is not new, but it is becoming worrying. For years, HR has been investing in strategic issues such as talent, skills, engagement, quality of life at work, and managerial transformation, but has struggled to translate these into action.
Why?
Because it does not always speak the language of executives.
Because it is not sufficiently rooted in the reality of work (people are everywhere in business, but HR is nowhere to be found in the workplace), but also because it is too often perceived as a top-down interface (processes, obligations, standards) rather than as a day-to-day partner capable of understanding issues, anticipating needs, and supporting career paths.
A function caught between tools and rhetoric
HR tools are advancing, modernizing, becoming more accessible and more digital. But a beautiful, user-friendly HRIS does not change a culture because it improves the administrative experience, not the relationship (Businesses know their employees. Really ?). And that is where the misunderstanding lies: HR has been modernized without any questions being asked about the role it should play in the future.
Until HR is able to answer a simple question such as “How am I useful to a manager who wants to develop, progress, or simply do their job in good conditions?”, it will remain peripheral (2023 Employee Experience Barometer: the employee experience confronted with its contradictions) and, at best, tolerated.
Reinventing itself instead of defending itself
HR now has the opportunity to reassert itself as a function that is close to employees, rooted in the business, connected to reality, and credible on both human and operational issues. This requires a change in attitude: less doctrine and more dialogue, fewer gimmicky initiatives and more service, less management and more orchestration (HR/IT and the reality of working at Moderna: the unspoken truths of a reorganization).
The challenge is not only to better support managers but to participate in the reinvention of work, and this will not be achieved with rigid skill grids or HR KPIs that are disconnected from the reality on the ground.
All of this reminds me of Thomas Chardin’s book: “HR: Mission or Resignation”. ([FR]“HR: Mission or Resignation”—The journey at a glance)
Bottom line
The Apec–ANDRH study does not say that HR is rejected, but rather that it is considered useful but not decisive. This is not a rejection, just a call for the repositioning of a function that must return to what it should never have ceased to be: a credible partner in all aspects of work.
Image credit: Image generated by artificial intelligence via ChatGPT (OpenAI)
Related articles:
The Future of Work : a matter of experience, a creativity requirement
Everybody Wants to Love Their Job
Employees lost in the HR journey. Irritant #8 of the employee experience
Career management: the long-term experience of the employee
Career management in the future of work: bridges rather than paths
The future of work is about….work and…. its future
