To have been told off by HR for this?

[Mhassy]

I asked a member of the HR team if they had children, in the context of discussing a flexible working request. This was in the small talk/intro part of the conversation, it wasn’t said to make a point or anything, or to bolster my request for flexible working. It was literally a polite back and forth before the actual meeting began, she asked how things were going with DD, I mentioned some new teething and it was all very chatty and I just asked - I thought politely! - if she had children. She told me she didn’t and the time had passed for her to now. We then moved onto the meeting itself.

Anyway, a day later I have a called from someone high up in HR to say I shouldn’t ask people if they have children and this is not an appropriate question in the workplace.

I do get that pregnancy etc can be a sensitive topic. I lost a baby a few years ago and it was and incredibly painful time at work and I felt triggered by any small talk about babies. However I would never have made an issue and I didn’t make an issue when the topic was raised.

AIBU to think this is a step too far to be policing this sort of conversation? I am recently a single parent and wouldn’t launch into being offended if I was asked if I had a partner? Where does it end? I was only making conversation!

To those who think this is inappropriate, which topics do you consider both safe and actually able to sustain a conversation of 5 minutes or so where that is what's needed? (or at the very least get it off the ground without risk of fizzling out and creating a lost opportunity for a good first impression by establishing rapport). Last night's TV, as someone suggested, seems like a minefield - what about all the people who've watched something about sexual violence or true crime? And surely the weather has no legs at all unless there's just been an unusually high drama storm? Saying it's a lovely day today and someone replying with yes, such a nice change from the awful weather we've been having lately isn't a conversation. It's just one comment followed by another which is generally the way any chat about the weather fizzles out before it's begun, again running the risk of broken rapport which can't always be re-established. Many people sadly do use their first impression of someone to set the entire tone of their relationship.

Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain · Today 10:24

Divebar2021 · Today 10:13

No this is a lesson that no one in HR is your friend.
Show quote history
Yep learned this the hard way. HR are never ever your friend. And they stick together and back each other up. Can get you fired if they so wish.

This is actually hilarious. How I wish I had the power!! I'd be lining them up... 😂

@Naheeda03 - A barrister eh?… I assume a barrister wouldn’t be stupid enough to use their actual name as a username given how you are speaking to Runner. I can’t imagine that would reflect well on you professionally.

I'm not the one whose rude posts are being deleted.

Eightfour · Today 16:05

@Naheeda03 - A barrister eh?… I assume a barrister wouldn’t be stupid enough to use their actual name as a username given how you are speaking to Runner. I can’t imagine that would reflect well on you professionally.

I think there's more likelihood that my cat is a barrister, to be fair...

In this context no YANBU as she started the convo off by asking about your dc.
I would have thought she was asking as she had children herself.
She sounds a touch sensitive, at least you know you can't trust her.

At this point, I think it would be easier to list the things you can quite safely talk about with work colleagues:

• Work.

That's it. But how sad is that?! We spend most of our lives at work, and social conversation is therefore incredibly important.

In my old workplace it was only through conversing about our families that one of the HR managers and myself realised we were both dealing with some really tough issues as a result of our dc's neurodivergence. She by far had it worse (her son was non verbal and becoming more and more violent by the day), but far from finding it triggering, it helped her as much as it helped me to talk about it.

How is anyone supposed to form good working relationships with colleagues with so many conversations now apparently being off-limits?! This was an innocuous exchange ahead of a meeting. Had op gone on to question why HR lady didn't have children, that would of course be very different.

Just to say to any HR professionals on here, this was not my experience where I worked last. Of course the HR Director is there to protect the organisation and not the individual, but the HR team I worked with were ultra professional, really lovely, supportive people. They helped me through the worst time in my life/ career to date. Mind you, they were the best HR team I've ever worked with.

You were lucky then. Some HR are good some bad. In one organisation they quite literally told me after being supportive that they could get me fired...

Whatafustercluck · Today 16:40

Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain · Today 10:24

Yep learned this the hard way. HR are never ever your friend. And they stick together and back each other up. Can get you fired if they so wish.
Show quote history
Just to say to any HR professionals on here, this was not my experience where I worked last. Of course the HR Director is there to protect the organisation and not the individual, but the HR team I worked with were ultra professional, really lovely, supportive people. They helped me through the worst time in my life/ career to date.

I am always a bit taken aback at the warped attitudes expressed here towards HR. We're all just human beings doing what can be a very difficult job! Now there are individuals in my team who aren't my cup of tea for various reasons but I can honestly say that all of us without exception try to do our very best for the employees we are dealing with.

I don't understand either how people don't see that in protecting the organisation, employees are also protected from mistreatment? It's not rocket science.

By the same token why is she asking about your personal life then??

This. Grounds for a counter complaint. I'd be doing nothing other than looking for a new workplace I think.

Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain · Today 16:43

Whatafustercluck · Today 16:40

Just to say to any HR professionals on here, this was not my experience where I worked last. Of course the HR Director is there to protect the organisation and not the individual, but the HR team I worked with were ultra professional, really lovely, supportive people. They helped me through the worst time in my life/ career to date. Mind you, they were the best HR team I've ever worked with. Edited
Show quote history
You were lucky then. Some HR are good some bad. In one organisation they quite literally told me after being supportive that they could get me fired...

I guess that's more likely in the private sector? I'm public sector and there are so many hoops to jump through under the disciplinary procedure, there's no way that any one individual HR manager could get anyone sacked.

See plenty of managers trying it on though... take a dislike to someone and then try to throw the kitchen sink at them! It's our job then to make sure that doesn't happen, both in fairness to the employee, and to protect the interests of the organisation.

I have no doubt it's a horrendous experience but please don't insult our intelligence by suggesting it's the norm, or it's common! It's not!

I don't need to insult your intelligence. Your own posts amply show your ignorance about the statistics on rape and sexual assault. 1 in 4 women and girls.

Stats on sexual assault

@IHaveNeverLivedintheCastle your figures suggest that 75% of the population have not experienced rape, and when I was at school, that was considered to be quite a large proportion. And you talk about "ignorance"???!

Anyway I am not going to respond to your comments any more. You are derailing the thread completely. It's irrelevant.

Nobody conflated the 2.

You were the one who started talking about rape being "rare".

Are you seriously saying 25 % of women and girls experiencing rape and sexual assault is "rare"? D

Do you know how many millions of people that is? Do you know how often it happens on a daily basis?

You posted a nonsense comment about rape being "rare". You had no idea what you were talking about.

Convictions are rare, sure, but SA and rapes are not rare at all. Whatever the statistic is, try doubling it. There are many, many more SA and rapes happening that no one knows about or even recognised by the victims as assault. Just look at MN and the countless threads by women saying what their partners do to them and they don't even realise it is assault/rape.

Well exactly

Once you start where is the line?

Maybe ask for guidance to refer to, to help you understand the rules of what is and isn't allowed

I am a bit gutted I didn’t see the pretend barristers response to me (and others) before being deleted.

I am going to they just reinforced the fact that barrister and HR advisor were jobs she was very bad at.

Noideawwhatsoccuring · Today 18:12

I am a bit gutted I didn’t see the pretend barristers response to me (and others) before being deleted.

Turned very aggressive and nasty because I asked them to reference case law 😂flinging out insults like Smarties!! Most un-barrister-like!

That’s funny.

if anyone has paid for their crappy legal and Hr advice, they should be asking for their money back 😂

Well, it was worth exactly what we paid for it 😂