HR departments see employees as the enemy

[Donke]

I have worked in several public sector orgs (NHS, civil service etc) and their ability to stonewall and gaslight is unbelievable. Why are they so convinced that they can do no wrong and that employees are stupid/dishonest/incompetent?

I am currently fighting with HR over my T&Cs, which should follow a locally agreed protocol. They are refusing to accept that it exists or that they have the skills to use it which makes no sense because every other trust in the region uses it. They will not open their minds to an outside pov. I have had similar before where they insisted on refusing to pay me sick pay. Why??

Total absence of any brain cells

I think HR is a bit like social work - they can’t ever argue their case to the general public because the majority of their work is highly confidential and can’t be commented on.

My experience of HR teams is good, they have provided sound employment law advice when needed. IME many managers use them as a ‘get out jail free card’ even though HR have acted in an advisory/supporting role which perpetuates the idea that they’re all bastards who are out to get you.

HR is part of internal security whose function is to detect weaknesses in the employees. ``I'm from HR and I'm here to help you.'' Believing that is not even naïve.

Hmmm

Why work in HR when you can be a douchebag on mumsnet?

If someone says ridiculous things they should be called up for it. What, in your opinion, was reasonable about that poster’s statement?

Funny seeing these threads.

You do realise that the majority of the time your cool and reasonable line manager who said "its not me its HR" is actually the one driving the decision to treat you badly, they can then hide behind big bad HR because it's not as if HR can say "this is what management want me to do"?

Reason why I left HR. Because I got fucking fed up of being the one blamed for disciplinaries, terminations, redundancies etc. while managers got to say "oh it's not my decision, it's HR"

As I always said to fellow employees "if only I had as much power as you think I have....."

"its not me its HR"

I've never had a manager say that to me, except in the case of HR fucking up paperwork and then they were as pissed off as I was.

There was nothing reasonable. Sweeping derogatory statements help no one, as well as being bloody rude.

Great 👍

Fact remains the majority of the time they hide behind HR, even if they dont directly say so, and they (used to be we) get this sort of abuse because people, for some inexplicable reason, genuinely think HR make the decisions all the time.

We know you don't make all the decisions. When a manager (you think they're massively popular?) makes a dumb decision for the team, we know that's them. Managers don't seem surprised or offended en masse when we talk about it happening.

We're just tired of you pretending that your job is to protect employee interests when it isn't, buggering up paperwork and being unnecessarily intrusive about medical information when you've already got the sick note. And when there are bullshit redundancies or similar, well, we know you didn't cause it, but do you really expect us to feel warmly towards the people tasked with making it look like an accident?

ETA: Your endless "awareness days" are frigging annoying too.

Thankfully it's not my job anymore.

I am sorry past experiences have done such a number on you that you hold this view of a whole profession. Although tbf I did the same - got so fed up of small minded arrogant employees blaming "HR" that I left a career I genuinely loved.

Funny how an employee cocks up = mistakes happen. HR who are also employees cock up and its a different story. go figure.

Ps - away days are usually requested by Directors IME so they can virtue signal on newsletters and business related social media. We usually hate them as much as you.

You'd be amazed how frequently line managers just forget to do paperwork (or think payroll deadlines don't apply to them), then use HR as a convenient scapegoat for their team member not having received a contract / amendment letter / pay adjustment when they should have.

When it's the same "cockups" across multiple organisations, noticed by workers everywhere, I'm afraid it is about the "profession", such as it is. But it's probably worse when you're actually doing your job properly, since it's not about protecting employees. I know I've said it already, but I think the dishonesty is what sticks in a lot of craws. If you were just openly named and branded as the department protecting the business' interests, people probably wouldn't find it so irritating. The soullessly corporate nature would have the right context.

I didn't say away days, I said awareness days. There's always a flurry of them every time a new HR head comes in and has to look like they're doing something while pretending it's all about the employees.

I don't think I am as easily amazed as you think. In this case, there was no doubt HR had cocked up.

I don't think it's fair to label and entire profession as useless, and I've always assumed that people generally want to do a good job. However my personal experience with NHS HR was painful, they didn't understand their own policies, made multiple mistakes, failed to communicate, wouldn't admit it when they messed up and ultimately made my situation worse through no fault of my own. Had they followed their own procedures properly, I could have been medically retired much sooner thus freeing up my post for recruitment - which was badly needed by the team.

You can tell just the sort of employees on some of these posts.

The “I’ve got a fit note so you can’t ask me anything about my illness or when I’ll be back” brigade seem to be out in force.

The freeman of the land comment a pp made earlier is spot on.

How strange that it's the name of the department that bothers you most. If i could have picked a name it would have been "Company Mother and Scapegoat Department", that's very accurate IME!! Some of the issues brought to me were unreal.....the number of times an employee thought their can of coke or whatever being thrown away was a HR issue 🤣

Awareness days/away days whatever, they are both equally tedious and as I say, usually requested by the SMT for woke points and to introduce new HR if relevant (transformation project....yay!! Zzzzzzz) I don't think I ever hid my contempt for these very well in my HR career (that actually resulted in me having several ongoing separate life long friendships with ex employees, the utter cunt that I am).

That's not what I said. I was signed off for surgery and returned on time. HR wanted to know what my surgery was for, which is none of their business, and resorted to increasingly disrespectful and dishonest means to try to coerce or trick the information out of me, under the pretence of "wanting to support" my return, even when I told them they could support me by ceasing to question me. I was signed off, I returned, I'm now fine, nobody needs to know any more.

But notice the HR person who thinks they are entitled to the employee's medical history, and that the problem is the employee. The whole "only problem staff don't love HR" stuff is just so much HR bullshit.

Yea, you can just tell who the troublesome employees are, I'm so shocked they have had bad experiences with management and HR 🤣

How strange that it's the name of the department that bothers you most

It's definitely not what bothers me most, but as I said, if the godforsaken profession was just more honestly branded, I think people would more readily accept its crap and find it less annoying. We wouldn't be having to push against the "we are just trying to support you because we love the employees" stuff that is being so well demonstrated by all the HR people on the thread.

Tbf even I wouldn't act like a giant pompous "an entire industry is against meeeeee" arse then expect respectful replies.

Generally speaking of course.

You seem quite bitter and twisted sadly. Just for interest, let’s hear what you do so we can share experiences.

Where on earth did I suggest that I expected respectful replies? I'm getting the exact replies I thought I'd get, it's HR. I'm just making the point that HR makes a big performance about loving employees but the truth is pretty clear from many posts on here. Well, it's clear in the workplace too, but you know what I mean. And I know HR isn't against me, sorry, meeeee (excessive vowels say....something). That's why so many other people feel the same way!

The discussion is essentially about why people don't like HR. I just don't really get why it's a surprise to so many!

You seem quite bitter and twisted sadly.

Oh, I absolutely am. Not because of HR, you understand, it's just my inherent nature.