That HR are useless in whatever setting they’re in?

[MiffyMiffed]

Bear in mind, that people don’t usually have to deal with HR as a new starter all that often, unless they’re serial job jumpers.

I started a new job for NHS 4 years ago and it took HR 6 weeks to process my paperwork. I had to actually ring them up and tell them I was starting on so and so date so send the paperwork to my new manager ASAP. They managed to do it in 5 mins after the phone call. 🙄.

Now I’ve got a new job, different setting, in a university. Again, absolutely useless. I’ve been emailed forms to fill out and send back. I emailed on the first day to confirm whether they wanted them back by email. No reply. So filled out forms online and sent them back. 3 weeks later I’m being told to post them. Then I’m told to scan a picture and send it. Next day I’m told everything has to be by hand. Tomorrow I’ll be told something else.

I’M SO FRUSTRATED.

@NatureWillDeleteTheEvidence mine do payroll, and the military's PSF which is HR does payroll (unfortunately).

@topcat2014 I doubt you’d get the same comments spat about finance because it’s probably seen as a more ‘intelligent’ job and people will understand more what it actually is.

My role actually involves managing the pay review process for 3000 staff but to do that I work closely with finance and with analysts as I wasn’t required to have a Maths A level as it’s not the sole focus of my job. I can ‘calculate pay’ if I have to but I would never say I am the best person to do so. However, I have to be able to project manage the process, deal with difficult Board members who want what they can’t have, manage communications, analyse market position etc etc.

Seems so strange payroll and hr have been merged, they seem like very very different roles to me! I could see hr stepping in over a pay dispute, but daily beancounting? Anyway, it is what it is

@nature - they shouldn’t be really but sadly many people just think HR = Payroll. It’s a daily frustration of mine as I’ve never been remotely interested in the transactional nature of Payroll yet we just get seen as this general blob of people issues (of which people’s payroll problems are the most emotive!)

Also whoever said this isn’t personal, of course it isn’t as we don’t even know who people are. However it is obviously offensive to be told that everyone who works in a particular area (regardless of the fact HR has different jobs within it!) is shit, inept, useless, lazy etc.

If this was a thread about understanding the point of HR then many of us could have educated you and explained what we do on a day to day basis and how difficult it can be.

I have only recently (one year) been working in HR - before that I was in a completely different roles although managing/recruiting and am now training in HR.

Payroll is considered HR where I work too. I wonder if that’s because it keeps salary info slightly more private to a smaller number of people? In my company not everyone in Finance would have access to salary info so maybe it’s something to do with that. Payroll are easily half if not more than half of our HR team.

I hope the thread stays up - I agree there’s lots of ‘tar with the same brush’ comments and of course some people will be diligent/careful etc. and some not in any job! But I recognise some of the comments here having been on the other side of them before as a manager in this company and one other - everywhere else I’ve worked has been too small for a HR specialist. I’ve learnt a lot from the rage here about how HR is seen. I think a lot of people in my company would think HR are crap.

I also agree with some of the HR specialists here though too! What goes on behind the scenes is often either really time consuming, or you’re waiting on a manager for a decision/tiny piece of info (e.g. confirm the start date so I can send their final version contract!) Our team is tiny and there’s always way more we could be doing than is possible because we are so small. In my very limited experience in HR in one company I’ve found myself frustrated we don’t have the same ‘hustle’ as other teams, but also more understanding of why HR can be painful/slow etc.

Big things I think affect it are:
Some members of the team have gone straight into HR and never worked in any other type of role and as a result I think they don’t understand the rest of the business (but I would think that )Director has filled HR roles half and half with specialists and retrainers like me which is a good way to balance that out I think.
HR is in a different county to the rest of the business - some have never/rarely seen the rest of the company.
As a result there’s less involvement/understanding of what everyone else is trying to cope with - particularly the low pay/short contracts that someone mentioned, affecting recruitment and retention. I think a lot of our managers would say they need more help on this which is my job.
All of those points could equally apply to about 75% of finance (some are located in other offices nearer other bits of business) IT, and some other support functions.
As mentioned here I deal a lot with very senior managers who don’t really care what the policy is! Sometimes I’m doing thing backwards to make up for steps missing or doing this really quickly to make up for it e.g. issuing contracts immediately for someone about to leave to visit remote tribal village or telling applicants the massive delay they are about to experience is because the hiring manager forgot they’d booked a holiday. It’s all human stuff though isn’t it - I can’t get angry about any of this - I find as long as you’re polite, quick (appreciate this often doesn’t happen - can’t believe the guy with applications in his drawer!!!) and admit when you’ve made a mistake and resolve it promptly people are forgiving.
We are definitely seen as a cost not an asset - finance are respected for their contribution to reducing costs in particular and IT are seen as area for new growth in our services but I know and have heard our CEO make comments that show he thinks HR isn’t useful. Therefore it gets no investment unless we can show it is a cost reduction exercise - I’ve been able to get some good projects through for staff training for example by showing how they reduce costs as they don’t actually care about the benefit to the person which is he bit I care about.

I’ve appreciated this thread to see how others see HR again and I hope I’ll use it to be better at what I am trying to do. I am offended about the comment that HR attracts people that can’t do anything else - that was mean!

I am also on holiday not on mumsnet while at work!

@whynotbot I think you're right about different experience. For me, I think the main 2 issues within a business in this context are 1) resource, especially in the public sector, we're all working with less and stretched now so it can become quite a defensive and territorial environment and 2) not understanding how we each work. I work in an "operational" department so it's incredibly frustrating when the "back end" business functions of HR or finance impede something we are trying to achieve, but likewise, I know I have irritated HR and finance when I've needed things but haven't followed procedure (for not knowing). I think a lot of it comes down to communication, I'm a big fan of away days and staff having tours of other departments to understand how they work....but as ever, there isn't the staff resource to make time for such frivolities!

Thankyou. Reading back, I sound negative about HR specialists and I shouldn’t have - of course you need specialists and I spend having to refer back to people who know what they are talking about!

I have def irritated HR by not following procedure also!

HR I find are great at ticking boxes etc but e.g. last Easter I had a contract role which was definitely set to go permanent. At an accountants within the top 10 in UK.

I found their onboarding, initial online induction system and the dealings with the HR person assigned to me (there was actually more than one of them) really frustrating (because the online induction system didn't work) really unprofessional and disjointed and was quite happy to leave - I found another contract. I also found that HR tend to look after the needs of the organisation first and you as an employee second.

@pinktornado

I followed someone like Craig, but in software development. My new manager assigned me to the part of the project X had been working on when he left, telling me that X had done a lot of the work & I should build on what he'd done because it was all good.

When I looked at the computer files he directed me to, I found they were all empty. So either X had been twiddling his thumbs & lying about doing the work, or he was p*ssed off & deleted everything.

There ya go, HR people: things go wrong in other departments too!

@Watermelon5, I'm with you. Of course not everyone in HR is low-paid admin. And even the ones who are, at least in my organisation, do a reasonably good job much of the time.

What I'm saying is, I'd like more push-back. Yes, I'm a senior executive. That means my job boils down to "worrying about the bottom line". I try to be a good and decent boss. I often succeed and sometimes fail. And in the latter situation, I'd appreciate a respectful but firm "hold on, that's not how we do things".

But, like I said, my peers (and myself T ny worst, i.e. after a long, stressful day) probably aren't helping when we say shit like "I'm a C-level and I outrank you by lightyears - your job is to fina a way for me to do my job without getting our arses sued" (not me but a luckily no longer with the company - due to it getting a bit touchy re. getting all of our arses sued eventually - former peer of mine).

@trinitybleu we are definitely on the same winding road there! How funny. Despite the reputation (you know the part in Bridget Jones where she's described as the one who "fannies about with a few press releases"? I'm sure the same has be said of us, replacing press releases with payslips ) I enjoy the job and find it hugely satisfying when I'm able to coach someone who then succeeds in getting a promotion, or help a team re-design their work processes to improve how things run, or help someone gain confidence/overcome imposter syndrome. It's brilliant. Number-crunching the payroll, or dealing with aggressive recruiters? Less so, but someone needs to do it...

@flatheadscrewdriver Ah, the holy grail. Reliable, non-pushy, effective recruitment agents. I have one who never fails me and am never going to let him leave his job!

@trinitybleu, I'm a high-earner. I'm desperate and willing to bribe you.

@TakenForSlanted lol, PM me We can discuss terms

Wow! I didn't realise there was so much hatred for HR. I'm currently working through my CIPD level 3 and hoping to start a career in HR after a temporary stint as HR admin.

The team I worked with was very small especially for the size of the company but they were professional, competent and had a real passion for helping employees as well as the business. They dealt with a million different things a day from recruitment to training to disputes and loads more. It really stoked my interest in HR and I decided to make a career of it.

I'm hoping that some of you have just had a couple of bad experiences and it's not just that i was lucky to have worked with such a great team.

Love that you tar so many of us as being useless after two bad (and really not that bad) experiences 🙄

I used to work in recruitment and yes 5 weeks is a long time but you need to remember that they are not only recruiting you. We would be trying to get a couple of hundred new starters through the recruitment process at anyone time. It's hard work and yes sometimes people slip through the net.

That doesn't make all HR professionals useless.

@noctu - that’s really interesting that you also have a particular view on Uni HR teams. I thought it couldn’t be entirely coincidental that it was my experience in two unis.

Given I can go and speak to our small HR team directly, it shouldn’t be rocket science to get things done. Sadly, it seems to be beyond them. They’re an identikit group of women, who resort to bitching without mixing with others, I’m very sad to say. I’m in another Professional Service, and we couldn’t get away with the delays or incompetence they display.
When I have to correct their annual leave calculations for part-time staff, that to me, is a key let down.