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.

" The staff adore her and she even manages to manage out people who are shit at their jobs/take the piss."

That's a skill few HR or line managers are willing to develop in my experience, especially in the public sector.

Oh my god, paid lunches, that chestnut. You're paid for 25 hours a week, so you work 5 hours. No lunch. Bahhhhhh!!!!!

Sacking someone in the NHS is near on impossible.

Not true. Fewer than 2000 staff in my Trust and we’ve averaged a dismissal a fortnight since April (often due to medical capability but also disciplinary issues.)

What a depressing thread, it actually upsets me to think people think of HR as some inept department that can’t do anything right.
How on earth can you show your worth in hr? You don’t meet targets or add to the bottom line and 95% of things that you do are never seen! I can’t brag to all employees that because I have helped fine people complete there management training I have saved the business x amount of money as now we don’t have to have recruitment costs/training costs for new managers, why would your average joe bloggs give a damn about that! But I can guarantee if I have forgotten to change a tax code (for example) or it has missed the payroll cut off that every last person will no about that!! How can I tell everyone that I work with that actually I spent an hour helping one of our factory workers fill in some forms today as English wasn’t his first language but he was truly stuck as to who he could ask? I can’t tell anyone as it’s no ones business but I bet everyone would know if I had missed a bonus off someone as the paperwork hadn’t come in from the manager! How can you sell yourself when let’s face it 95% of people have no clue what you do!
I love my profession and I work really hard to make my work place a happy and inclusive environment, I hate that people think I must be shit and hr people don’t actually do anything!
Oh and also 90% of this thread is about recruitment which sometimes has bugger all to do with hr!

*five people not fine people!

Ah, my lovely DH used to say "HR are there to make Finance look good"! (He was Finance, I'm HR.)

This made me chuckle. My DP is a payroll manager. He won't accept jobs where the payroll function comes under HR, rather than Finance, because, according to him, they don't understand the first thing about it!

In his defence, he did work somewhere where HR refused to countenance his attempts to stop them breaking the law about things like holiday pay for people on ZHCs and minimum wage.

One of his last acts in that job was reporting them to the low pay unit.

I'm not really sure that it's a fair assumption. I'm a union rep and have dealt with my fair share of HR people over the years. What I have found is that they are mostly decent people, but follow processes to the letter to mitigate the risk of tribunal challenge. They can appear quite bureaucratic and robotic at times, but off the record they are often much more sympathetic and try to finesse things if you can build good relationships.

The problem tends to come with their processes, which can drag on because they depend on multiple people who often have lots on their workloads. Public sector is rife for this - each procedure has a set response time, but if you have to pass it to three or four different parts of the HR department, each person will be given a personal deadline, so it all adds up.

I think public sector organisations like the NHS and civil service are slow and appear incompetent in many departments, but HR is the main face of the organisation for employees.

I don't work in HR.

@gingajewel This But I can guarantee if I have forgotten to change a tax code (for example) or it has missed the payroll cut off that every last person will no about that!! is exactly the sort of thing that drives my payroll manager DP mad about HR.

Employees are entitled to be paid the right amount and paid promptly. If someone hasn't acted on a notice of coding or met the cutoff, that employee won't be paid the right amount, or paid the correct amount promptly.

To an old-school payroller like DP, it's a matter of professional pride to get people paid correctly, every month. If that doesn't happen because someone in HR gave helping someone fill in a form priority over getting info to payroll in time for the payroll run, it really gives him the rage.

I was an NHS Recruitment manager in a previous life.

We were underfunded and under staffed.

The levels of employment checks are stringent for a bloody good reason (set nationally) and need to be completed before someone can start work. I had 3 wte recruiting for a large trust of 4500 staff.

Main problem is people slagging off what they don't have insight into and don't understand.

I did a lot of work educating managers around the trust on what their expectations should be and ensuring the candidate knew why we were asking for their passport and a utility bill as well.

The things you describe are administrative functions and not really much to do with HR. The administrator who hasn’t done your paperwork may well sit on HR but you’d be more accurate if you were ranting about admin staff being useless not HR.

@LakieLady I wish Payroll sat under Finance in my company!!

@catgirl1976 exactly - the things that have ‘gone wrong’ could have been done by any person in admin, not by someone actually qualified in HR (which you need to be for most roles in my place!)

I was offered my NHS job at the end of August last year and started at the end of November. HR were useless.

Watermelon
The person who couldnt work out my holiday had just done a masters in HR. She told me i wasnt entitled the same holiday as full timers as it wouldnt be fair! I was entitled to 26 + 12 full time. The way she calculated it , i was only entitled to less than 2 weeks for the whole year.

I really hope that all the MNers who work in HR do not bother giving advice in future to the many people who post on the employment boards looking for advice.

Nice thread this. I'm sick of the way people talk about HR. I am sick of the way weak managers blame us for their decisions because they are too spineless to have a difficult conversation with someone they are paid to manage.

*I really hope that all the MNers who work in HR do not bother giving advice in future to the many people who post on the employment boards looking for advice.

Nice thread this. I'm sick of the way people talk about HR. I am sick of the way weak managers blame us for their decisions because they are too spineless to have a difficult conversation with someone they are paid to manage.*

round of applause

Bruffin when you do a masters in HR (or even the basic level three CIPD) it really doesn’t cover admin level stuff like working out people’s annual leave. You should have gone to the admin whose job that would have been. Sure it would be nice if they could do basic maths and it sounds like they were being a bit dense but it’s a bit like asking your GP to update the records system. Not really their area of expertise. I really think a lot of people don’t understand what HR is. Annual leave, sending out contracts and chasing up references are not HR functions they are admin.

Public sector. HR would not refer me for support re bullying after I had a breakdown without the consent of the bully, which was of course withheld.

Now they will not acknowledge that they, and I, have been given wrong advice by Occupational Health and nine months after my initial assessment they still refuse to accept that I have a disability.

Shocking.

@toystorypants, I would definitely have made sure the CEO and CFO knew that the mistake was not mine. They probably know anyway, but I’d damn well hammer it home.

HR have been useless in every organisation I've ever worked at, to varying degrees. I say that as an employee and as a manager of people.

Two examples: directly contradictory intranet / emailed clarifications in order to do something as simple as submit a manual request for holiday rather than the online system where it was down for maintenance (every time I speak to someone they don't know the process or tell me something new), this week, current employer.

Previous employer, first manager role, dumped into the hellfire and legally risky area of managing someone with known mental health issues exacerbated by work stress. Ended up leaving a year later due to the pressure and sweet feck all support from my manager, occupational health & my HR "contacts".

Every one of them has been meek, weak, disorganized, and nothing like the specialist "professionals" akin to other qualified colleagues I work with daily.

HR appears to attract people who want fancy job titles and respect but who can't actually do anything competently.

Again. Scenario a) admin not hr. scenario b) your job as a manager. Not hr’s job to manage your staff. Sounds like management isn’t for you if you think hr are there to hold your hand.

People really have no understanding of what HR does. We are not there to process your annual leave or manage your staff for you.

Catgirl
There was no admin, she did not understand basic principal of what p/t holiday calculation involved, nothing to do with maths, they just didnt understand it.

What does HR do then, because it seems from this thread they dont want to take responsible for payroll. Holiday calculation, contracts, staff welfare etc

Someone else with a very poor experience of NHS HR, over many years and different personnel. Staff rarely seem to have any professional qualifications, and didn't understand their own policies.

”What does HR do then, because it seems from this thread they dont want to take responsible for payroll. Holiday calculation, contracts, staff welfare”

Payroll isn’t HR but where on this thread has an HR person said they don’t want to take responsibility for holiday calculations, contracts or ‘staff welfare’?