Evaluating HR Systems

"What is HR good for, anyway" is the question that Mike O'Malley and Edward Lawler ask in the July/Aug 2003 issue of "Across the Board"

Abstract:
"In bad times - and even in good times - HR is uniquely vulnerable. Under pressure and skepticism. HR executives and practitioners have striven to quantify what they do, trying to prove the discipline's effectiveness. But this emphasis on measurement will surely fail to accomplish its goal: propelling HR chiefs into the inner circle of corporate decision-makers. These metrics may contribute to the larger financial picture, but, in the scheme of things, their revelatory conceptualizationns of behavior, regardless of the status of the speaker and the seeming conviction behind his words. In an effort to shake itself free of its sometimes foolish and fluffy image, HR may be abondoning its most distinguished virtue. The problem for HR is that miscues are personally experienced, highly visible, and quickly attributed to a function gone haywire."

O'Malley an Lawler state that "In an effort to shake itself free of its sometimes foolish and fluffy image, HR may be abandoning its most dinstiguished virtue."

What is HR's most distinguished virtue according to the authors? Do you agree or disagree and Why? If metrics aren't the answer, what do you recommend to determine HR's effectiveness?