‘No, I didn't want to be part of HR’

This paper examines the practices and reports the experiences of practitioners in a newly created ‘development’ unit, which is part of an HR Directorate in a local National Health Service Trust hospital in the UK. The case study reveals two aspects of tension between people working in HRM and those in the development function: the structural organization of the HR department and the development unit; and the personal distance between practitioners in each. It is the first of these, the structural dimension, that is the major concern of this paper. This tension is examined theoretically and empirically in order to understand and portray HRM/HRD relationships, as perceived and expressed particularly by development practitioners operating within an HR Directorate.