HR departments see employees as the enemy

Hilarious. Happy to dole it out but not prepared to take some back. I’ll leave you to your preferred state of bitter twistedness and thank my lucky stars that during my career I was fortunate enough not to have to work with too many of your ilk.

You'll be waiting forever. It's none of your business and you have no right to the information. Hmm, this is familiar.

That might be your experience but it’s not one I recognise - for example, I have never, and I know no one in my networks who has, claimed to be “putting the employees’ interests first “. What would that even mean in practice?
Still waiting to hear what you do.

I found HR to be the most useless section in the workplace, and certainly they were never of any help to employees, quite the reverse.

What do they do all day apart from self created nonsensical navel gazing, and petty sabotage to the real work if an organisation?

They won't suffer in your battle only you will!

It's not one issue. That was one particular experience but believe it or not, I am smart enough to recognise a one-off when it isn't in line with the norm of the wider picture. I'm bitter and twisted, not incapable of pattern recognition. I didn't start my working life disliking HR.

Perhaps you didn't realise it, but an industry based on being corporate, protecting the business as a priority, knowing too much about employees, having knowledge of firings and so on before the staff themselves do, and all under the guise of putting employees' interests first, is really, really difficult to warm to. It's probably necessary from a business perspective (although I've worked in places that functioned fine without it) but it's too much to expect it to be universally adored.

I thought some earlier posts about exactly why HR are so often so crap and disliked were pretty interesting. Definitely more interesting than why I am a terrible human for not trusting or liking HR as an institution very much.

And I would sincerely like to know what's up with the paperwork. I know I'm not imagining that one.

What we’ve been discussing is how many posters on this thread have extrapolated from their personal and localised issues with HR to determining that the whole profession is somehow flawed. I don’t know the details of your particular issue, you have my sympathy if you were badly served, but take it up with those directly concerned and don’t try to paint us all with the same brush.

Sorry can not sustain that should read!

Having read more of this post, I can see why businesses need HR. I did found dealing with employees difficult when I had my business, some felt we owed them the world, some knew how far to push and stopped just short, thought they knew how to do everything better etc and that management were in lala land and had no clue how it really was.
I was guilty of this myself before I ran my own business and became an employer and good god my eyes were open as an employer, i then saw the otherside and got it, thank god for the HR company we hired.
Now after 12yrs of running a business I returned to being employed, i will never slate HR like I used to and I'm now pleased I don't have to deal with that side of things anymore it was soul destroying at times, energy zapping.

My point is, it works both ways. Employees can have issues with the company they work with and find it infuriating. Employers find themselves in the same boat with employees. Until you've work on both sides, you can not sustain an argument based on having only experienced one side of it. Employee/employer are two very contrasting ways of working and I'm just grateful I have now experienced both and can see the fuller picture in my current employment.

I've had no complaints, not even from HR. Which is what we are supposed to be discussing.

I’m sure you’re an absolute joy to work with.

You seem quite bitter and twisted sadly.

Oh, I absolutely am. Not because of HR, you understand, it's just my inherent nature.

Where on earth did I suggest that I expected respectful replies? I'm getting the exact replies I thought I'd get, it's HR. I'm just making the point that HR makes a big performance about loving employees but the truth is pretty clear from many posts on here. Well, it's clear in the workplace too, but you know what I mean. And I know HR isn't against me, sorry, meeeee (excessive vowels say....something). That's why so many other people feel the same way!

The discussion is essentially about why people don't like HR. I just don't really get why it's a surprise to so many!

You seem quite bitter and twisted sadly. Just for interest, let’s hear what you do so we can share experiences.

Tbf even I wouldn't act like a giant pompous "an entire industry is against meeeeee" arse then expect respectful replies.

Generally speaking of course.

How strange that it's the name of the department that bothers you most

It's definitely not what bothers me most, but as I said, if the godforsaken profession was just more honestly branded, I think people would more readily accept its crap and find it less annoying. We wouldn't be having to push against the "we are just trying to support you because we love the employees" stuff that is being so well demonstrated by all the HR people on the thread.

Yea, you can just tell who the troublesome employees are, I'm so shocked they have had bad experiences with management and HR 🤣

That's not what I said. I was signed off for surgery and returned on time. HR wanted to know what my surgery was for, which is none of their business, and resorted to increasingly disrespectful and dishonest means to try to coerce or trick the information out of me, under the pretence of "wanting to support" my return, even when I told them they could support me by ceasing to question me. I was signed off, I returned, I'm now fine, nobody needs to know any more.

But notice the HR person who thinks they are entitled to the employee's medical history, and that the problem is the employee. The whole "only problem staff don't love HR" stuff is just so much HR bullshit.

How strange that it's the name of the department that bothers you most. If i could have picked a name it would have been "Company Mother and Scapegoat Department", that's very accurate IME!! Some of the issues brought to me were unreal.....the number of times an employee thought their can of coke or whatever being thrown away was a HR issue 🤣

Awareness days/away days whatever, they are both equally tedious and as I say, usually requested by the SMT for woke points and to introduce new HR if relevant (transformation project....yay!! Zzzzzzz) I don't think I ever hid my contempt for these very well in my HR career (that actually resulted in me having several ongoing separate life long friendships with ex employees, the utter cunt that I am).

You can tell just the sort of employees on some of these posts.

The “I’ve got a fit note so you can’t ask me anything about my illness or when I’ll be back” brigade seem to be out in force.

The freeman of the land comment a pp made earlier is spot on.

I don't think it's fair to label and entire profession as useless, and I've always assumed that people generally want to do a good job. However my personal experience with NHS HR was painful, they didn't understand their own policies, made multiple mistakes, failed to communicate, wouldn't admit it when they messed up and ultimately made my situation worse through no fault of my own. Had they followed their own procedures properly, I could have been medically retired much sooner thus freeing up my post for recruitment - which was badly needed by the team.

I don't think I am as easily amazed as you think. In this case, there was no doubt HR had cocked up.

When it's the same "cockups" across multiple organisations, noticed by workers everywhere, I'm afraid it is about the "profession", such as it is. But it's probably worse when you're actually doing your job properly, since it's not about protecting employees. I know I've said it already, but I think the dishonesty is what sticks in a lot of craws. If you were just openly named and branded as the department protecting the business' interests, people probably wouldn't find it so irritating. The soullessly corporate nature would have the right context.

I didn't say away days, I said awareness days. There's always a flurry of them every time a new HR head comes in and has to look like they're doing something while pretending it's all about the employees.

You'd be amazed how frequently line managers just forget to do paperwork (or think payroll deadlines don't apply to them), then use HR as a convenient scapegoat for their team member not having received a contract / amendment letter / pay adjustment when they should have.

Thankfully it's not my job anymore.

I am sorry past experiences have done such a number on you that you hold this view of a whole profession. Although tbf I did the same - got so fed up of small minded arrogant employees blaming "HR" that I left a career I genuinely loved.

Funny how an employee cocks up = mistakes happen. HR who are also employees cock up and its a different story. go figure.

Ps - away days are usually requested by Directors IME so they can virtue signal on newsletters and business related social media. We usually hate them as much as you.

We know you don't make all the decisions. When a manager (you think they're massively popular?) makes a dumb decision for the team, we know that's them. Managers don't seem surprised or offended en masse when we talk about it happening.

We're just tired of you pretending that your job is to protect employee interests when it isn't, buggering up paperwork and being unnecessarily intrusive about medical information when you've already got the sick note. And when there are bullshit redundancies or similar, well, we know you didn't cause it, but do you really expect us to feel warmly towards the people tasked with making it look like an accident?

ETA: Your endless "awareness days" are frigging annoying too.