HR: there to prevent employment tribunals, not support workers

I think you've misunderstood- it wasn't just one rogue manager, it was the whole organisation telling me I was "choosing" to skip a season and they'd hire a replacement for me.

It's sorted now. But yes, I'd expect HR not to nod along to sex discrimination in a joint meeting.

I asked them if they had a maternity leave policy and they said they'd never needed one (I was only the second woman in the decades-long history of the department and the first had been over 60.) This is a household name company, albeit small department within it.

Look, I was there. I do know what happened and what should have happened (and eventually did). HR was initially woefully inadequate. And I'm not the only pregnant woman this has ever happened to.

This!

our HR department are pretty honest about this too.

Great thread! I've worked in HR for over 30 years & am nodding sagely at some of the comments from HR colleagues. I hear you!

HR are not going to advise the manager within earshot of the employee! Is that what you expected?

I was responding to the 'what your role is' comment. I haven't gone through and read your comments and I can't advise on your situation. I work somewhere with a supportive culture, I don't need to flag bear for anyone 🤷

Unfortunately a lot of HR departments play the long game. Not fully understanding impacts of certain employees behaviours. Usually because they are appeasing some people or have no clue about the work environment. Err on the side of caution and it’s the bad pennies that get away with it.

My original response was to a comment saying something like "sure, let's all slate a female dominated profession" and my argument was I'll save my praise for women who support women. Not women who... don't.

But why would HR specifically support women? The role of HR is to make work a better place for all employees, not one particular group.

It's certainly not a comparable profession to midwifery or early years care.

If the commenters purporting to be HR on this thread are representative of the profession as a whole, then... yeah. Irony is off the charts.

However at my main employer, HR are fantastic. It varies like in any other profession - you get bad midwives as well as good ones and so on.

But I wouldn't say that the profession on the whole specifically supports women like those other female dominated professions do (midwives, childminders). Somewhat the reverse if comments on this thread are representative

employees moaning about their specific annoyances

I have at length explained that I was effectively being fired for being pregnant (not rehired on a recurring contract) which is sex discrimination...and you summarise this as a "specific annoyance". Oh, hun... you are not doing a good job of flag bearing for HR.

Same. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to kick managers under the table or furiously send them a teams message during a call because they're going totally off piste.

Who pays the HR employees OP? Come on, it’s obvious.

Well, it varies by organisation but HR can cover recruitment and onboarding, managing sickness absence, liaison with payroll (or doing payroll in small organisations), training and development (planning, delivering, recording), ensuring compliance with regulatory bodies, responsible for policies and procedures, some of which may be statutory, systems management and operational things like annual leave, I used to have an operational job and dealt with daily annual leave and system queries, advising on disciplinaries, suspensions, dismissals, grievances (but not decision making) and higher level roles with have influence on culture, pay awards etc. A tiny element is dealing with employees moaning about their specific annoyances 👍

I didn't say HR is inherently toothless but the fair treatment of employees does depend on the organisation taking our advice.

Isn't that the definition of toothless? "We can ask them to play nicely, but that's it really"

That’s exactly what they’re there for - to protect the employer and make sure they don’t do anything that can lead to a tribunal.

This is not news!

I lost count how many people said join a union - on page 1.
Being in a union didn't help Sandie Peggie, or the Darlington Nurses. In fact their unions have basically told them to fuck off

Well I'd be more sympathetic if you'd opened with "sorry that happened, but your HR was a bad apple and I'd have advocated for you". But your response was more like "yeah that sucks but what did you expect HR to do".

So... yes I am also wondering what the point of your role is...you have literally prompted me to wonder that by asking your question.

I didn't say HR is inherently toothless but the fair treatment of employees does depend on the organisation taking our advice.

Frankly, I sometimes wonder what the point of my role is. Particularly when apparently public opinion is that I'm the devil's handmaiden and totally useless. Perhaps I'd be better off moving into a more popular profession.

You are correct that this is HR's function.
I'm not sure why you seem to be implying that this is objectionable?
Employers avoid tribunals by correctly according worker's rights where they are legally due.
If an employer gives any workers more than their minimum rights, HR's function includes overseeing to ensure there is no direct or indirect discrimination on the basis of one or more protected characteristics in how these are given.
What did you think they should be doing?

Because I had several meetings with said manager and HR jointly. HR could have piped up to remind him of the law.

As I say, if HR was universally effective then Pregnant Then Screwed would not exist.

If you're arguing that HR is inherently toothless then... that begs the question what is the point, and we're back to where we started.

I work in HR and can't solve slt being bullies anymore than you can. We are supposed to be an advisory/support function for the organisation, if SLT are bullies their managers or whoever sits above them would need to recognise and deal with it and HR would advise that person.

A big part of the problem is people don't understand what HR do and expect us to do the jobs of line managers. I advise managers who then go and repeat what I say word for word when actually I was bouncing ideas around for them to then make the bloody decision!

Do you know they didn't advise this? Because it's what I'd be advising if I was in that situation.

I didn't question whether the situation was fair or not? In fact I agreed it was an unacceptable thing to say to you.

I asked because I'm always genuinely interested to hear what people expect HR to do about things like this. If they're not the decision maker it wouldn't be appropriate or fair for them to guarantee that you'd get a contract when you wanted to return. How would you have felt if they'd told you you'd get a contract and then you'd been told later you wouldn't get one because the hiring manager had decided against it? I would assume behind the scenes they were advising the manager on the risks of not giving you a contract, but I doubt it was a decision for them to make.