Contradictions within HR management

To be honest it nevers fails to amaze me the extent to which the rhetoric of HR practice and policy fails to match the reality of what actually happens. I teach about this all the time, but rarely do I get much more than a range of blank looks. Surely I sometimes seem to hear them think - if a manager says something it must happen.

Take an article published in Personnel Today, today, for example. In Record numbers of junior HR staff leaving over lack of opportunities (Georgina Fuller) it is stated that employers are being urged to involve their junior HR staff in more than just administrative duties to prevent turnover levels that are believed to be three times higher than the previous years.

As per usual the CIPD presents a spin on events to explain an apparent rise in HRM turnover - lack of progression opportunities, and, increased levels of technology conflicting with raised expectations of new HR workers.

The emphasis if you read between the lines is far too much on the individual and not on the nature of the organization - i.e. a more plausible explanation is that organizations are restructuring to remain profitable and humans pay the price. In other words, the language of HRM is largely devoid of an attention to the business they are really in (except, ironically, the actual term HRM!) - aiding the exploitation of individuals and groups, and, not so much in the humanistic terms they often talk about. Discuss.