To ask what your HR department are like?

[chxm19]

Honestly just curious.

Whenever I've had to deal with HR at my work I've had nothing but unpleasant experiences and generally find them to be very inconsiderate and unhelpful.

Got signed off work sick for anxiety and depression and got hounded when I finally went back as it "wasn't fair" on the rest of the team..

In my last workplace they were ok - didn't have much to do with them. But my current HR dept are incompetent at best.
They managed to breach my contract 3 years ago and as a result, I was put on 3 years of a protected pay rate, which has now expired. The two meetings I had to discuss my financial situation - there are no minutes for, even though they were taken, and they don't have a copy of my breach of contract letter that I signed, so there's nothing in any file to confirm what happened.

They also have a job description for me which is 4 years out of date, and they have signed me off as having CPD and some managerial training which I have never had.

On top of this, they are now in the process of doing exactly the same thing that breached my contract in the first place, and my union have constructed a case to prove it once more.

They're very nice on the phone, and always answer my emails (though the head of HR has appalling spelling which really annoys me) but they are completely inadequate

Don't know about generally though. I'm sure some lovely competent people work in hr too

”I’ve never encountered an HR person who can accept the same about their own profession. Never.”

Which bit of what I posted do you not believe then? That I’m an HR person or that I perfectly accept there are plenty of incompetent ones about?

@SoVeryOuting

In many places I have worked they were a combination of awful HR lingo combined with incompetence.

I am not talking about protecting human resources but it would be nice if they knew the rules they are supposed to apply.

I'm so glad I'm currently dedicating 18 months of my life to become CIPD qualified to be clearly the most hated person in the organisation 😂

Certainly where I work, the HR team sees themselves as the middle ground between balancing the needs and wants of the business, board and senior managers whilst trying to ensure this doesn't damage employee satisfaction and engagement.

Ultimately the decisions come from senior management and we get left to implement them whether we agree with them or not. We can suggest alternatives or ways to lessen the blow for the general staff population but its not always accepted.

And HR are there to advise management on employment law issues, it's up to the manager whether they follow the advice of the person who specialises in that field they usually ignore us though and that's why we've got three tribunals this year

As far as my career I certainly intend to be fair, competent, knowledgeable and helpful to staff and management. By these attitudes maybe I shan't bother!

The thing that really riles me is management will decide they want to, for example, get rid of enhanced maternity pay as the business isn't doing so well (JUST AN EXAMPLE) and then HR get left to implement it, consult etc when ultimately HR would rather they didn't get rid of enhanced maternity pay but we don't make the decisions at the bottom line.

I'm in hr but not in a senior position. I've been pulled up on being too 'nice and flowery' with people by my boss (who is a total cow). It's absolutely true that hr exists to support the company over the staff. We know our stuff and will do everything to avoid being put in a position where we can be taken to a tribunal etc. But they are still able to find ways of making life difficult for people and I've seen people be edged out.

IME HR are always very handy as someone to blame for unpopular decisions managers have made. Leads to the popular misconceptions many have that HR are the ones who decide to get rid of people, or discipline people, or not pay people a bonus, or not allow flexible working, or whatever it might be.

Ours is fab. They have a 24hr abscence line which is nurse based so you can get medical advice over the phone about some conditions.

@IdblowJonSnow wow

I think Working in HR is a lot like constantly being in between divorcing parents. It’s really not down to you to get the two sides to play nicely, each side will try to “pull rank” on you and the other side, no one listens to your advice and everyone blames you for not dealing with them getting their own way.
Depends which bit of HR though- admin, payroll, L&D, reward, Organisational change, employee relations, management information, strategic improvement, Business Partnering...

Oh yeah I forgot recruitment, Occ Health, staff wellbeing...

I've never had anything to do with them, which by the look of it, is a good thing.

@Ragevibration

THIS!

I'm also in HR- and have also completed my CIPD recently- I love my job! And believe me I can count on many occasions in which I have disagreed with the line manager and thought they were being too harsh and not balancing the well-being of the employee with the organisations goals, so much so that I have had to report them to their own senior management.

In all professions you will get bad eggs- but there are a large % of us that do really care! And remember we are under contract by the company too- therefore not immune to disciplinarys / redundancy etc

Please don't tar us all with the same brush

There are bad and good ones - their role
isn't really to do with individual grievance management/ issues it should be much more proactive policy and culture driven.

I've encountered far more overly entitled employees - the organisation pays - it expects a level of productivity back. It isn't a parent or friend or mysterious benefactor. Absent egregious treatment the fact you don't get on with your work colleagues, feel aggrieved by how the fridge is stacked, can't believe you are expected to turn in when your child is sick for the 10th time that month isn't a problem for HR to solve.

Abiding my the ACAS code etc is often a choice. Sometimes unfairly dismissing someone rather than put up with them through a lengthy performance or conduct management process is the best choice. Absent discrim or retaliation which I wouldn't tolerate - the benefit is often worth the legal risk.

HR is almost always reflective of the organisation. Well run organisations have good, well resourced HR who work in the interests of the organisation, and those interests are often the interests of the employees.

Badly run organisations tend to have very poor quality and underresourced HR functions who don’t have the tools or the knowledge to be valuable to anyone.

There is also the question of independence. Where the is a CHRO on the main board then HR has a degree of autonomy and independence. In other structures it doesn’t really have a licence to operate and just does the bidding of senior leaders who don’t know what they are doing when it comes to People issues.

So it depends really.

ACAS is a code of practice, clue is in the title. It’s not the law.
Depends how serious of a breach....

If you have a HR dept that only deals with hiring, firing and absence, then they need to move with the times.

Our HR Dept deals with:

People strategy
Engagement
Internal communications
Development
Succession planning
Talent management
Careers and progression

A small part of their role is absence and firing people.

They spend a fair bit of their time making sure managers manage well and fairly.

I would say that 70% of the HR depts are like the above, with 30% being crap.

”I've never had anything to do with them, which by the look of it, is a good thing.”

What is it about your HR department which makes you think it’s a good thing you’ve never had anything to do with them?

”I've never had anything to do with them, which by the look of it, is a good thing.”

What is it about your HR department which makes you think it’s a good thing you’ve never had anything to do with them?

I've have limited experience with HR for a number of reasons.

One company I ended up pouring my heart out during my exit interview about the horrendous, sexist treatment I had suffered (at a mental health focused company no less). Heard it on the grapevine later that previous bosses had been laughing at my accusations and calling me a "silly little girl".

Other place I worked at had no internal HR, employed an external company that we had no access to. Only managed to not get fucked over because my OTT nature made me research the fuck out of my rights etc so I knew where they company would try and fuck me over.

No HR at my current company but I'm pretty autonomous and only report to the director/owner who is pretty lovely and doesn't do anything I don't do either.

‘Which bit of what I posted do you not believe then? That I’m an HR person or that I perfectly accept there are plenty of incompetent ones about?‘

In classic HR manner, you have managed to ignore the subsequent sentence 😂

No, I saw it thanks. And the winky face.

Currently run by incompetent fools.

‘No, I saw it thanks. And the winky face.’

Oh right, true to form then. Shame, I had hoped MN users might be able to let go of the po face. Come on. One of your own literally just said above -

‘Sometimes unfairly dismissing someone rather than put up with them through a lengthy performance or conduct management process is the best choice’

!

@Flowery. I meant from what I've read on this thread, I'm glad I've never had anything to do with a HR dept.
I don't know what they're like where I work as I've never had anything to do with them.
Sorry about the confusion of my post.