To ask what HR actually is?

[SummerDays95]

So I'm looking for a complete career change from teaching, been doing it for 7 years since I left uni. I've been looking at jobs in companies that I like the sound of as a starting point, as I have absolutely no clue! HR admin assistant has come up quite a lot, and I like the sound of it and I think it would suit my skillset. I don't know much about it and don't think I'm in a position to apply just yet, but would like to learn. Day to day, what does it involve, and what sort of qualifications would I need? I've never worked in admin before!

It's the department that admistrates employee / employer matters in order yo protect the company from legal risk.

I didn't say you don't know what you're talking about. I said I disagreed with you and gave my own opinion 🙂

Not always. Done properly it's the department that admistrates employee / employer matters in order to bring out the best in people so that the business can also benefit.

OP, HR can be good or bad depending on the values and culture of the company, which HR should be instrumental in shaping but sometimes toxic companies can't be turned around.

@Flowertop845 it's just another way of saying I disagree with you.

Someone's bitter.

And ignorant.

OP have you considered teaching internationally? I would definitely recommend looking into it.

It's not though. It's you saying that your 20 years in HR trumps her experience because you 'know what you're talking about'.

There are so many different types of HR departments - I've worked in a highly unionised industry where we all lived in fear of HR (who seemed to be remarkably immune to the redundancies that kept rolling around the rest of the business), but more recently in tech-driven businesses where the HR/People teams are actively helpful and business partners and do good things along with the thought stuff. It can be a really good path for the right people, you just have to pick your employer and role carefully.

Same thing with hours. I've seen really senior people have to do long hours, or sometimes mid level ops people if there is a major reduction in force or union issue going on, but in the places I've worked, the admin and junior team members definitely haven't had to work late, and they've always been the team.with the highest percentage of part time workers even at quite senior levels.

I think it would depend massively on the organisation and the kinds of jobs they have. E.g. a call centre full of people on low-paid zero hour contracts is probably going to involve a lot of hiring, firing, disciplinary matters, staffing rotas and sick leave admin. Some workplaces are heavily unionised and you might find yourself up against union reps, dealing with grievances. A mid-size organisation staffed by skilled professionals doing interesting work might have more of a focus on organisational development and learning. A cash-strapped little company is barely going to manage the basics and might have you staying late sorting out the payroll on an antiquated system. A big wealthy company will have a much bigger department with the opportunity to specialise in whatever interests you.

I don't work in HR but have known many who do (and have worked for various types of organisations).

I don't agree with the post that said HR manage the staff. That's misleading, managers manage their direct reports. Don't go into HR thinking you'll be in charge of people.

on the other hand i've yet to meet an HR person that has an ounce of common sense or (in my particular career) even a basic comprehension of what we make, how we make profit and what our engineers actually do. it's a constant shock to me how senior some pretty stupid people can go in a company if they wave the HR flag. and i say that as someone in a senior leadership role - how they are sitting on the same bench as some of my CFO, COO colleagues i have no idea. they don't bring anywhere near the same skill or value to the organisation.

Unfortunately I can attest to this. But worse, they have now started in the last decade naming themselves HR Business Partners.

as if the last two words will now magically make folk appear strategic and align themselves with understanding the business or more likely command a higher salary for appearing such

HR Business Partner is the biggest misnomer since the Office for Budget Responsibility.

on the other hand i've yet to meet an HR person that has an ounce of common sense or (in my particular career) even a basic comprehension of what we make, how we make profit and what our engineers actually do. it's a constant shock to me how senior some pretty stupid people can go in a company if they wave the HR flag. and i say that as someone in a senior leadership role - how they are sitting on the same bench as some of my CFO, COO colleagues i have no idea. they don't bring anywhere near the same skill or value to the organisation.

Unfortunately I can attest to this. But worse, they have now started in the last decade naming themselves HR Business Partners.

as if the last two words will now magically make folk appear strategic and align themselves with understanding the business or more likely command a higher salary for appearing such

HR Business Partner is the biggest misnomer since the Office for Budget Responsibility.

You’ve obviously worked in the same businesses as me. But you left out dithering when asked a question and falling back on, “but every case is different!” to disguise ignorance. And making up ‘initiatives’ to keep themselves busy and bolster their own self-esteem.

We’ve had a contribution from an HR apologist (it entertains me that all the people I’ve ever met who worked in HR are desperate to convince everyone doing the proper work that they, HR are very important and key to the business. Why is that, I wonder? It’s almost as if they know that nobody can see any value in what they do):

At it’s (sic) heart, HR is about managing the people-assets (sic) of a company. Recruiting and retaining the best talent at the best price. Managing the supply and demand of labour and skills through the business. Part of the hatred of the role is that people don’t like the dispassionate nature of that

Yeah, that’s right. We dislike your cool, dispassionate natures. Funny that. Everyone I’ve ever encountered in HR, and I’ve worked at a senior level in many businesses, has been passive aggressive, sulky and spiteful. The exact opposite of dispassionate, in fact.

Someone who speaks some sense comes along! Thank you!!

It is not the responsibility of HR to manage staff. That is for the line managers to do.

i completely agree with the latter part of your post about some of the skills required though.

I’ve worked in HR for 20+ years in all kinds of industries/sectors - manufacturing, production, retail, local government, sales - multi national companies to family run companies. It’s really sad to hear so many bad experiences of HR.
If you want to DM me OP feel free, as I’ll be happy to talk openly about the job - warts and all!! 🤣
Like any industry - if you’re good at what you do, and you’re in it for the right reasons - you can make a difference!!

One of my old HR business partners left HR having gone into it because she liked people but having subsequently realised that you typically see the very worst of people in an HR role - you're constantly dealing with the stressful stuff, such as working relationships going wrong, people failing at their jobs or being made redundant etc. HR typically gets involved when there is something difficult going on in order to ensure that the correct procedures are followed. Nobody needs you you when everything is going well, so a lot of the work has quite a negative focus tbh.

Given your teaching background, a learning and development role might suit you, though, and it would have a more positive focus than many other aspects of the HR function.

I think you’d be bored in HR Admin OP.

I’ve met a lot of ex-teachers in Learning & Development roles over the years - instructional designer, learning designer, technical author being a few job titles you may be interested in looking at.

Hr, send out contracts no one likes with draconian rulings.
To offset these rulings Hr then invests in promoting perks as a tangible alternative to real hard cold cash.
Basically, snake oil salespeople used to pacify/punish employees.
in tribunals, Hr is usually annihilated by employment lawyers and emotional appeals of former employers.
Not naming names.
😂😁

I agree with this and am also an ex teacher working in HR. There are quite a few of us! I too started as an HR Administrator then worked my way up from there. I'd say an HR Admin role can be really busy, often doing mundane stuff like answering emails and sending out contracts but if you find the right organisation it can also be really broad and give you insight into lots of different areas of HR. It's also a female-heavy profession and I've personally had some excellent female managers willing to champion me and help me progress my career.

Do you get pleasure from being so nasty? Lots of HR staff (including me) have tried to make helpful contributions to this thread and of course HR departments are vastly different depending on the organisation you work for. I've met some crap ones, I've met some amazing ones but your post just reads like you're very bitter.

Am I one of the 'HR apologists'? I'm not in HR, but do work with them often. Ultimately though, they're aligned with management and therefore just like if you had a thread asking high school students about their teachers, you're going to get a disproportionate number of responses from the smaller number people who think they're all tyrants.
In the school example, some of those students will unfortunately be having a horrible time at the hands of poor teachers, some will be unhappy because they're lacking the support they need (whether due to poor management or because what they need is beyond the scope of the school), and some will have be the cause of their own problems, but be unable to see it, and blame it on others.

Personally HR isn't for me because I prefer to be a player than a coach or manager. However, I'm in a technical role and while I often recommend those types of jobs to career changes, it doesn't lend itself to what you're saying about a job you don't take home - and the reality is that operations and management roles are important too. I bet that lots of the people complaining would be much more upset if they didn't have someone to manage and benchmark their benefits, or to show the CEO why the gender pay gap report is embarrassing and something needs to be done, or ensure you have a valid contract, or ringfence a training budget.

Last one on that... Loads of people here recommending learning and development, I'd be really cautious about that given we're heading into a recession. HR is going to be busy with the large number of redundancies to come, but training budgets will be slashed. Might be a hard time to move there.

I came on to say this.

Look at the CIPD website too OP. I believe there is an option to specialise in L&D while doing the CIPD now as well.

If you're a teacher, I assume you will already have a post grad level qual? So I'd go straight to CIPD L7 and study while working to gain the experience to go with the qual.

It's a huge misconception that HR are there to look after staff, they are not. They are there to protect the business.

Goes back to the tea and tampax days of personnel.

OP have a look at Civil Service Jobs. They are often open to career changers.

Some of the opinions on this thread about HR Professionals are sad. I’m not taking away or nullifying folks personal experiences (there’s good and bad in every profession), but all the same some of the opinions spouted on here are rather venomous.

Thing is though, historically, a high performing and effective HR Department would operate with no awareness from the average employee - we were the silent partners, the WD40 on the cogs.

The only exposure people would then get would be the ‘bad’ stuff - disciplinaries, redundancies etc.

I find myself supporting employees against over firm, over zealous or underprepared management more than I’ll ever ‘protect the business’ and yes you can argue that would be protecting the business to a degree but is it so hard to actually believe that there’s HR Professionals who genuinely do want people to be treated right whilst they’re at work?

At the end of the day, we are there to help the business succeed - but so is EVERY ROLE in the business. That is why businesses employ people. It just so happens our role is helping with the people aspect- and by the way people can be real dicks.