HR: there to prevent employment tribunals, not support workers

Too many people expect their company to be a combination of their best friend, ever forgiving parent and emotional support dog. HR are there to help run the company not protect you from adulthood

HR is there to represent the employer not to protect individual employees. Which is why all.employees should join a Trade Union.

Cross posted with this. I'm partially reassured that you at least see what was obviously wrong. Well, they didn't advise him. Not yet. Until I kicked up a rather mighty storm then they must have got legal advice and then did a government worthy U turn

HR could have told my manager "dude you cannot tell a pregnant woman to quit just because she's having a baby, that is sex discrimination".

The fact I'm having to actually explain this to someone who claims to be HR that "doesn't throw women under the bus" is...just...I can't even

I fully support the work of Pregnant then Screwed. I've also been on the receiving end of poor treatment when pregnant/returning from maternity leave.

I wouldn't say it rests solely with HR to sort those issues out. Ultimately, HR are primarily an advisory function. If organisations persist in ignoring that advice and in treating employees poorly, there isn't much the HR team can do about it.

I don't agree with everything my organisation does but I'm not a decision maker. I can advise them on their options and risks, it's up to them what they do with that advice.

Ps. Even the fact that you're asking me the question "what did you want hr to do", and questioning whether the situation was even unfair or not, really makes me doubt your final statement.

Anyone else reading your comment is thinking "yep, QED."

Of course HR are there to protect the company. But that’s doesn’t (necessarily) mean they are soulless vampires.
They are there to ensure managers behave properly and follow a fair process (yes- ultimately to avoid tribunals). If you have a legitimate issue with something that isn’t “I don’t like that I don’t have a window seat” and is something more like “I wasn’t given an opportunity to apply for a promotion because I work part time” then HR can very much be your friend.
But no, they don’t care that the vending machine is empty or that someone used all the semi-skimmed milk.
They are there to hold managers accountable for their management decisions and warn them of the risks, but managers sometimes don’t even listen when the risks are pointed out to them and plow on with unfair processes anyway. Imagine how infuriating that is to an HR professional who inevitably gets the blame.
Also, never listen when a manager says something like “I did ask but HR said ‘no’” or “HR said…” they are usually lying and trying to pass the buck of making an unpopular decision onto someone else to paint themselves in a better light to their reports. Almost all decisions ultimately sit with the manager, not HR. HR may not be your friend but they aren’t usually your enemy either.

I wanted assurance I would be rehired (recurring seasonal contracts) after my mat leave. They refused. They said because I was "choosing" to skip one season I would have to be replaced and they would then give the recurring contracts to my replacement.

I had to go higher and higher. Finally they did give me the contract.

Second time I got pregnant and said I'd have to skip a season, I got a very carefully worded "looking forward to seeing you on your return". I should fucking hope so.

Have you heard of "pregnant then screwed"?

Of course I'm not saying all HR are shit. But if they were all good at supporting women, "pregnant then screwed" would cease to exist, gender pay gaps would be a lot smaller, the list goes on.

Well, duh?
How do you think the opposite, or even neutrality, would work? You really think companies would pay someone to work against their best interests and support staff in taking them to tribunal?
In an ideal scenario HR can make working conditions better for staff and employers but when shit hits the fan you'd have to be very naive to not realise what aide they are going to be on

I thought this was common knowledge.

Without wanting to sound inflammatory, what is it that you were expecting HR to do about that situation? I agree it's a totally unacceptable thing to have said to you, but HR would rarely be the decision makers for what happened to that individual. Equally, if they were reprimanded in some way, you wouldn't have been informed of that.

I'm in an all female HR team and I can assure you we don't throw our female employees under the bus.

Hold up.

I'll celebrate/be grateful for predominantly-female professions that support women. Midwives, nursery workers, childminders, cleaners... these are all women I'm deeply grateful for and have really appreciated. And, with society being what it is, childminders/cleaners etc are often helping free up women to go into the workplace.

Too many HR departments have thrown women under buses. Maybe you're naive and haven't had the experiences I have had, like when I was gently urged to quit a senior role (in my secondary job) during my first pregnancy as I'd be "too busy, surely" to do the job after having my baby. I went to HR and they were less than useless. That was a uniquely female issue and they did not help me.

Women are overall slightly more likely to "need" HR than men for various reasons. HR, on the whole, are no friend to women.

This is with the exception of my current main employer's HR who have been fab but that's been a pleasant surprise.

As said, there are good and bad in all professions and it sounds like you were treated awfully. I certainly wouldn't be joking about something like that with any manager I work with and I'd be raising it immediately if they thought that was an appropriate joke to make.

More broadly though, I do think a lot of claimants raise a claim without being fully aware of what it involves and find themselves unfortunately very stressed and disappointed with the outcome.

@CleanQueen123 Yes, of course it’s stressful, but this was a threat, the undertone was we will destroy you. I came close to throwing in the towel, but then came across email evidence that my bullying boss had joked to someone in HR that hopefully my depression was bad enough that I would kill myself as that would sort the problem out. The gloves were off then, as I saw exactly what I was up against.

As someone else said, you get good and bad in every profession.

There is some truth in what was said though. People underestimate the effort and stress involved in raising a claim, usually because they've been mistakenly advised they'll get a big payout.

It can easily take 18 months to two years to get to ET and in between there's lots of back and forth with the respondent/their solicitor and the ET themselves. You'll have to provide solid evidence to support your claim and if it gets as far as a hearing, you could find yourself being questioned by the respondent's barrister.

A settlement also isn't an admission of the organisation's guilt. Usually it's a commercial decision because it's cheaper to settle than to continue with the cost of defending the claim.

I'm all for employees having a mechanism to raise concerns about bad employers but I see a lot of them raising claims with no real idea of what the process will involve.

Yes thry are.

But I dont think this is any kind of well kept secret...

Exactly this. 👆 As a former senior HR Professional, my role in advising managers how to operate lawfully had a beneficial impact on employees. Whether employees recognise this is another matter - and this thread suggests to they mostly don't.

Some HR people are awful and some are great, like any other profession. Most HR teams or people are working really hard in the background to mitigate appalling management decisions but employees will never get to learn about it - you just see the outcome. E.g this week I have fought for an employee to get discretionary paid leave to support his poorly daughter when the manager took offence at 'how he asked'. Then supported the manager to realise why that was a dick move.

You would be surprised how much a good people professional will advocate for colleagues, often at the expense of their own wellbeing or job security. Yes we manage risk but we want to make things better, often with exec teams that just don't care.

We deal with everything from the mundane to (TW) baby loss and suicide, often when we are dealing with our own personal challenges because we are people too.

We don't always have the authority to make the changes needed but you can bet we will always be the ones held accountable. We don't have a magic wand to give everyone what they want. 🤷‍♀️

Have you thought about speaking to your HR team to get their views and give them some ideas on what they can do differently? I suspect not, easier to post that HR are not my friend whilst taking zero responsibility to help change things.

Agree, many people on mn seem to think HR is a counselling or dispute resolution service.

Yes, totally for the employer not the employee. When I took a case against my employer of workplace bullying and disability discrimination they were beyond appalling. I had one HR boss actually phone me up and threaten me, telling me that I would be very foolish to bring a case to tribunal, and that the process would destroy me. They ended up settling the case two days before tribunal. The woman who threatened me was utterly vile, and it was hard not to laugh when she was made redundant some years later.

Oh here we go, let's bash a profession that's predominantly female.

Agree with @Elektra1, HR is a Dept, designed to work for, service, serve, provide for, protect, the company.

It's not there for the employees, it's there for the company. Surely everyone knows this?

Agreed. Managers seem to think we're there do all of their people management for them. Employees think we're there to be a knight in shining armour to tell off their manager whenever they think they're being treated unfairly. You can't win.