this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2024
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My wife works in HR and there a lot of misconceptions about the field. First off, a lot of people call them "the cops of the company" or claim that they're only out to protect the company. If your HR person is any good then that is not their goal. Good HR people are there to protect the company, yes, but they're also there to protect the employees. It's been proven time and time again that being good and fair to your employees leads to more productivity. A good HR person is always fighting with the top brass trying to convince them to do the right thing for the employees. They're in the weeds with the executives explaining to them why giving a raise that just matches inflation is not a raise, and anything less is actually a demotion. They're explaining why giving benefits will actually earn the company money in the long run through employee retention. They're trying their best to get performance reports, pay bands, etc, so that employees will see feedback on their performance and receive help when they need it and increased salaries when they're excelling.
Not all HR departments are great, there are plenty that are awful, but imagine this scenario -- and this has happened to my wife many, many, many times:
You go to the executives with a plan for raises and benefits, you've been working on it for months. Both physically working on it, and in meetings explaining to the executives how this plan will not just benefit them but also the employees. After all that work, the executives take your carefully crafted plan, completely gut it despite all your advising, then hand it back to you and tell you to present it to everyone as though this was your grand dream from the beginning. It's pretty demoralizing, but you have to put on a brave face and try to remain positive while explaining "your plan", and keep all the stuff about how good it actually could have been if you'd be allowed to do what you know is right to yourself.
It's better than nothing, after all. You've made some improvement to people's experience of the workplace.
You know you've got a good HR team if you're working somewhere that has solid benefits, quarterly or semi-annual performance reports (with raises), pay bands and clear paths forward in your career, raises that at least meet inflation, a positive work culture where you feel at least some trust and comradery in your peers, etc. If you do, then those people are not your enemy.
In brief, I hope some of you reading this will take away this message: HR people are not the enemy. They're just the messengers, and the advisors. If you have a problem with the HR department where you work, then you almost certainly have a problem with the team of executives who aren't listening to their expertise.
I appreciate the positive and constructive outlook and for that I value your contribution. Your wife seems like she's being the change we want to see in less-than-stellar HR departments, but I think to consider the benefits of HR from the employee POV just isn't safe unless you're absolutely certain where the priorities lie for your local HR team.
The phrase "cops of the company" is an even more accurate term in the sense that while some cops may actually believe in serving their community, many perhaps most do not, and trusting one is hazardous to your health. A good HR department does care about employees and the company, but how does an employee know that they have one of the good ones? I feel like this is something you don't really know until you lean upon it such as when disagreements occur, and then either the rickety post will hold or you fall flat on your face. Me? I'm not leaning on that rickey post any more than I would willingly speak to a "friendly" neighborhood police officer. Your job isn't a place for trust. It's business. That HR person could be your wife, or they could be the kind to shoot first and ask questions later.
I don't have a problem with my local PD nor do I have any issues with my HR, but I definitely don't want a visit from either.
I understand your point, although I disagree. I will say that my intentions were never that you (and everyone else) should be buddies with HR, or even trust them. But there's a huge difference between being friendly but at a distance and being actively hostile.
Just a friendly fyi, itβs camaraderie.
Thanks, but they're actually both accepted spellings.
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/comradery/ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comradery
Weird. Never seen that spelling. English is messed up.
Please don't use Mirriam-webster as an English source. Noah was on a tear to re-make English when he created American. And it's as american as a hot-dog eating contest -- but in as much as dictionaries only tell you what's popular and only accidentally say what's right, this one is the farthest from canon outside of one country. I'm surprised there's still a 'u' in 'source'; or a 'c', for that matter.
My wife also works in HR and I now work in an adjacent department, EHS. I came to post pretty much the same as you did.
I will add that it's interesting reading these threads and seeing the conspiracy theory type comments uniformly painting HR across the world. They speak as if the employees that comprise HR have no agency or are uniformly of one mindset, protecting the company at all costs, even though that doesn't benefit them personally at all. It's a simple solution for a complex situation, so it sounds good but doesn't hold up under the merest scrutiny.
We get the same shit in EHS, how we're just there to prevent company liability and don't really care. It's quite frustrating since it's anything but true and tends to be perpetuated by employees who don't actually engage with EHS, so they don't actually know who we are or what we do. Reading through the comments, it's much the same here.
Most EHS departments are like most HR departments. Perception management to benefit 1) the department and 2) the company. Any possible way EHS can use lax regulations (most places outside the EU) to avoid accountability, it will happen in nearly every circumstance.
I worked in EHS for a time. The amount of scab, toxic and corrupt behavior I saw made me NOPE out of that career field real fast. EHS got more people fired and swept more incidents under the rug than anyone else. Masters of gaslighting and virtue signaling.
Of course there will be exceptions, and Iβm sure youβre one of them.
I don't know how you expected the Everyone Here Sucks department to be a good idea /s
Seriously!! Not my smartest move.
One comment is anecdotal. A million is a statistic.
If you're suggesting different, then I'd point you to the word 'exception', and also suggest that HR has an image problem deeply rooted in a conflict of interest that it needs to solve. And if it wants to support the workers it will need to be funded by the workers to remove that conflict, and once it supports and is supported by the workers in a group, it's a union.
Their primary responsibility is to protect the company, protecting employees only matters in the context of protecting the company.
Didn't bother reading the rest, because you're already bullshitting.
Source: almost 4 decades in very large (tens of thousands of employees) companies
Does it matter what their intentions are if the result is that they end up protecting employees too? They are being paid by the company too, and it's their job to make sure the company follows legal practices to ensure the company doesn't get sued. Of course they have an incentive to protect the company, but any trained and educated HR person knows that treating employees well is a great way to protect the company.
Does it always work out that way? No. Why? There are HR people who are bad at their jobs or intentionally malicious or unscrupulous, yes. There are also "HR departments" that are run by family members of an executive of the company and don't have any idea what they're doing.
All I'm saying is that HR departments, most of them, at least try to talk executives into doing the right thing, but at the end of the day HR doesn't get to make the final decision.
If you're mad at the HR department of your company for something, it almost certainly wasn't their idea.
Or in very simple terms, don't shoot the messenger.
I overlooked this part. That's where the conflict of humanity comes in.
That still only benefits the company. In capitalism my productivity is truly the only variable I control. The more productive I am the more value is extracted from me to the company/shareholders. Yet nothing is gained from me except exhaustion.
You get paid by the company. The company not closing down benefits you. Also, your performance should (in most cases) lead to raises to your salary.
The company extracts a profit, technically if they came out even they still wouldn't need to close.
Min-maxing one's own productivity is truly the only power the wage slave has in his pocket.
We all know that is 100% not how things work.
You're simping for the boss, typical HR.
You're making up straw man arguments and you obviously haven't even read my post.
Also, I'm not HR.
Not defending either side, but how often do hourly employees get raises based on performance at your wife's company? You say performance should lead to salary increases, but what about the majority of people who only make hourly rates?
I have no opinion on that because that's not what we're talking about. Usually companies that offer hourly rates rather than salaries don't have an HR department, or the HR department is so far removed from those employees as to make no difference to them whether they're there or not.
I'm not sure what you want me to say because it's pretty much irrelevant to the situation I'm describing.
The reason it's relevant is that most working people do not earn salaries, they earn hourly rates. I'm a welding engineer earning a salary, working with maintenance men and welders and operators who all earn hourly rates. Every company I've ever worked for has both salary and hourly and also an HR department.
The situation you are describing does not align with the vast majority of working people's experiences.
Hahaha, you're so full of shit your eyes are brown.
All companies with more than a handful of employees, have HR. It's a legal issue for them.
Salary vs hourly really has fuck all to do with this.
Wow, hey buddy, after looking through your comment history I see a long standing pattern of sarcasm, derision, and outright anger. If you're not already doing so, you should strongly consider therapy for anger management.
Let me throw you a little binary choice set:
A1: HR are great, and I trust them.
A2: HR are great, and I don't trust them.
B1: HR sucks, and I trust them.
B2: HR sucks, and I don't trust them.
Obviously option A1 and A2 have the same outcome, while B1 has significantly worse outcomes than B2. What's worse is that, by your own post, HR can go from A to B in an instant, because they're following orders.
Obviously it's in my own best interest that I district all HR.