Never has the pressure been greater on businesses to operate more efficiently and become fitter and leaner. Yet my assessment is that we in HR have probably burdened our organisations with more bureaucracy than any other profession. All the evidence shows that between 45 and 70 per cent of the resources available to HR in any organisation is spent on administration. I believe that the true cost is much higher when you count the management time also spent on HR activity. Much of it, I suspect, is in processing the many forms and procedures we have created, or in servicing the policies we have introduced.