Strategic HR--That elusive creature

Human Resource in every company is much vilified. It is claimed (sometimes justifiably) that they are useful only for 3 things, recruitment, payroll, and vilification.
But todays HR professionals feel that they are being short changed. In the party where the marketing guys ruled, and the finance guys were feted, the poor HR fellows looked a little bit out of place, standing at one corner, dipping into the drinks cabinet now and then.
Times had to change, and suddenly a divine light dawned....and the enlightened HR professional came up with the golden words, and it was called "Strategic HR".
HR guys suffered from quite an inferiority complex. Whenever a fin guy was asked to deliver his results, he could say, hey i lowered your debts by 90%, and saved you a tonne of cash. And marketing, "Heck, where would you be without your star who got you 50 new clients?". But poor HR..."Sir, I hired 2500 new employees who are going to cost you Rs100 crores....and most of them will leave by next week." Not guaranteed to bring a smile to that CEO's face.
Strategic HR tried to turn things on its head. It said, "Phsaw...these balance sheets are all past data. and all those sales happened yesterday. Our stock prices depend on tomorrow...and for that, we need future growth."
And of course, future growth was measured by whether you had the right people doing the right job, at the right time, at the right place. This was strategic HR's idea. To pick the best people for the best job at the right time. And all this would be based upon a company's nebulous vision and mission statement.
Today's HR profs and executives are big believers in Strategic HR. Whether it works is still a matter of conjecture.
Mind you, I do not denigrate HR. Any company with Bad HR is doomed to devastation and ruin. But I am just a little bit suspicious about Strategic HR. Its fine in theory. But in practice, it frequently means work...which no one likes doing.