Page 2 | To think most HR departments are just a corporate shield?

Jennps · 08/07/2025 21:54

50Balesofgrey · 08/07/2025 20:56

Yes. That is why they are there. Trade Unions are the employees' advocates

No, Trade unions are there to play politics, like their pockets and get out of doing real work.

TourangaLeila · 08/07/2025 22:02

TaupePoet · 08/07/2025 20:53

“Come to us, we care” and then nothing. HR isn’t there for the employee. It’s there to manage liability and protect the brand. Anyone who’s complained at work knows this.

Yes, that's right. What did you think they were for?

Wasitabadger · 08/07/2025 22:07

HR’s behaviour part of my complaint to the Employment Tribunal. They sat there and said nothing while my Team leader refused reasonable adjustments. My line manager questioned me on why I struggle to make verbal telephone calls. I literally had to point out that I could find research on why an autistic individual can struggle with processing telephone conversations. Strangely there is not research on why a deaf individual struggles to process telephone conversations. The employer publicises they are a Disability Confident Employer Level 2.

Wasitabadger · 08/07/2025 22:11

BadIdeaRight · 08/07/2025 21:07

Never worked anywhere where I would trust HR with anything.

The one time in my life (20+ years ago) I complained about a sleazy boss, nothing was done. I ended up leaving because of him - it was constructive dismissal really, but I wasn’t in the frame of mind for a fight at that time in my life. Low and behold, a couple of years later there was a big public scandal about HR failures and sexual harassment cover-ups at that organisation…

My current employer is no better. I have a disability I haven’t declared because I have seen the way it’s used against those who do. Inclusive culture my arse.

I am sorry to read this. However your post reminds me why I am fighting back. Excellent news today is that NDA are now banned. Not that I would have ever agreed to an NDA. I resigned they can no longer hurt me. I can and will be fighting back and bringing their discriminatory behaviour into the light.

Wasitabadger · 08/07/2025 22:13

NigellaAwesome · 08/07/2025 21:13

I worked in a large public sector organisation and worked quite closely with senior HR people. As a group they were the most sociopathic people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. Anyone ethical left quickly. Their combined efforts made the whole organisation utterly toxic. Examples being ordering line managers to issue sickness warnings for really sensitive health cases - whilst the decision on whether to issue warnings or not was supposed to be down the line manager, it wasn’t really because if the lm refused they themselves would be threatened with unsatisfactory performance procedures. They don’t even pretend to be on the side of the employees. They also pride themselves on not upholding any grievances or B&H complaints, which means that they regularly get taken to ETs and lose. Meanwhile morale is so low that they are haemorrhaging people, who leave on ill health retirement, often after lengthy sickness. It’s a complete shit show and almost entirely down to HR. They might think they are acting to protect the organisation, but in fact they are causing the biggest harm, operationally, reputationally, financially.

Not an LA in the East of England is it? With an historic University?

OldGothsFadeToGrey · 08/07/2025 22:13

AlphabetBird · 08/07/2025 21:02

Er, yes. They protect the interests of the company. It’s not in the interest of the company to mistreat staff, end up in tribunals, or have turnover that prevents businesses doing what they need to do, so they are quite keen on treating people legally, fairly, and well enough to keep them productive…

💯 agree. I work in HR because I’ve worked in too many organisations that ignore legislation and employee rights. Generally we protect the organisation from rubbish line managers

CranfordScones · 08/07/2025 22:14

Interesting view here: HR Britain: how human resources captured the nation Is HR the force holding back our economy?

...Why were recruitment processes taking so long? To ensure fairness. Who decides what’s fair? The Public Sector Equality Duty, in precedents set by courts and interpreted or pre-empted by employment lawyers and HR advisers.

Why were so many employee grievances settled at such great expense, before and after employment tribunals? Because there were so many transgressions of HR policy, often by the very people who had codified the rules.

HR Britain: how human resources captured the nation

Is HR the force holding back our economy?

https://www.newstatesman.com/business/2024/11/hr-britain-how-human-resources-captured-the-nation

Wasitabadger · 08/07/2025 22:19

Handbagcuriosity · 08/07/2025 21:48

I was an HR professional and one of the reasons I left is because it is such a thankless job. I left a toxic workplace after a few weeks because the HR director expected HR to persuade managers to issue warnings when someone had just been off sick for a few weeks and had a good record or would make people do training in their own time. I refused to do it so left.

I have also worked in really lovely places where we went above and beyond for employees. Making sure the policies were written so employees had lots of support. I spent hours with employees listening to their problems and then had meetings with managers to persuade them to be more supportive. Unfortunately there’s only so much you can do to influence managers, when managers don’t listen HR get the blame from the employee.

What people don’t realise is that HR are not the decision makers. Managers are. I left the profession because managers would ask me advice and either ignore it and do the opposite which would end up upsetting people unnecessarily creating more work for me down the line. Or if they didn’t like the answer they’d make sure to say it was HR’s decision when it wasn’t.

People don’t realise that managers have the power, not HR. And usually when HR are protecting the business, it tends to be persuading managers not to take drastic or unfair decisions because if they do, there is a risk that the employee will take the company to an employment tribunal. So actually they are usually helping the employee while helping the business

Another pet hate is when managers decide to restructure and expect HR to write all their paperwork and attend all the consultation meeting so HR get shit on from the manager and then shit on from the employees as they think HR are the bad guys making them lose their jobs.

And my absolute hate was you managers saying to employees, you need to do X, Y and Z or I’ll have to get HR involved, as if we’re the work police

There are definitely bad HR professionals out there, usually working in a toxic company but we’re not all bad. And the poster who said HR are all rats. Am guessing you’ve had a shitty experience but please don’t tar all HR with the same brush

Not disclosing my role as it gets bad press. However, I understand your point and agree not all HR people shall be hostile, negative and do not want to support individuals. Unfortunately the HR person I am complaining about has behaved appallingly and even the exit interview has been purposefully misquoted. Fortunately I had a union member sat in the exit interview with me, to ensure I had a witness to what I actually said not what they wanted me to say.

Handbagcuriosity · 08/07/2025 22:30

@Wasitabadger I'm sorry you’ve had a bad experience. There are definitely some poor HR people out there. I hope you get the resolution you want. I get frustrated with bad HR as it gives the good HR a bad rep.

I thankfully work for a really nice organisation now and we’re really supportive of people who are neurodivergent, being neurodivergent myself it’s really important to me. There are better companies out there so I hope the next place you work at are more understanding and supportive

LaudCodec · 08/07/2025 22:40

They’re there to manage people issues within the organisation. They aren’t there to advocate for or support employees. As noted above, join a trade union.

TeddyOatmeal · 08/07/2025 22:40

@VimesandhisCardboardBoots completely off topic but love your user name 😊

Wasitabadger · 08/07/2025 23:29

Handbagcuriosity · 08/07/2025 22:30

@Wasitabadger I'm sorry you’ve had a bad experience. There are definitely some poor HR people out there. I hope you get the resolution you want. I get frustrated with bad HR as it gives the good HR a bad rep.

I thankfully work for a really nice organisation now and we’re really supportive of people who are neurodivergent, being neurodivergent myself it’s really important to me. There are better companies out there so I hope the next place you work at are more understanding and supportive

If your company is hiring, you’re welcome to DM me the information. Unfortunately I was broken by the experience and struggling. I am however fortunate enough to have another area of my life where I am supported and championed despite my differences. I am however very anxious about applying for new professional positions and new companies.
I am pleased you found the right company and your colleagues have you. I was very sad to leave my post and the young people and parents I left behind.

Woodchipping · 09/07/2025 00:35

I work in a skilled niche role that is in very high demand, so if someone in the workplace is being a tosser, I just leave and give full reasons in the exit interview. I have little faith that HR would sort anything out for me. Like the time I was told :

that unpaid parental leave wasn’t offered at the big multinational company (guess what? It’s a legal requirement to offer it), or;

when I went for an internal role only to be told afterwards that the interview process was a sham and the role had already been guaranteed to another interviewee prior to advertising, they just needed to find someone else to interview to make it look legit, or;

when I worked for a bullying madman who regularly left team members in tears at the end of the day. I didn’t cry, I just got another job and was out of there within 3 months. This has happened twice actually.

I always give the idiot managers and extensive kicking when HR do my exit interview. I’m not sure to what extent it is used. The last time I left a role was over a year ago and my role is so niche my former employer still hasn’t filled it. They pay a professional services firm £££ to do the role in absence of an employee. The lack of trust in HR costs firms lots of money.

BadIdeaRight · 09/07/2025 00:42

Re: unions. Unfortunately my union thinks you can magically change sex and if you disagree with that you’re a far right bigoted transphobe. They don’t seem to care about women’s rights very much. So I stopped paying my fees and left. I’ll take my chances.

NigellaAwesome · 09/07/2025 01:34

@Wasitabadger no, not LA in east of England, but to be fair, I don’t think my experience is in any way a one off. I could be describing so many places.

jazzybelle · 09/07/2025 01:58

Just to add to what has already been said, HR will always protect their senior managers. Where I used to work we had senior managers who were titled Director of.... One of these managers had numerous formal grievances taken out about him. None of them were ever upheld. But the worst part was that his wife worked at the same place. He quite clearly told her everything and she used to go around discussing the cases/issues. One of my colleagues who had a taken out a formal grievance against him wrote a letter to HR and the 'big boss'. It wasn't taken seriously. The colleague said it was basically just dismissed with a cursory reply saying that the parties had been spoken to. We were all annoyed. The union was disgusted. They really should have been disciplined.

boulevardofbrokendreamss · 09/07/2025 03:52

Well yes, they’re not there to protect the employees. We can’t even call them HR anymore, they’re the ‘people team’.

Middlechild3 · 09/07/2025 06:23

SmugglersHaunt · 08/07/2025 21:18

I can’t stand them. What kind of person wants to do that for a living?! We’re currently going through a restructure/voluntary redundancy and they are appalling in every way. Just bottom-feeders there to prop up the company. Weak, snivelling rats they are.

Recently went through a restructure redundancy myself. HR pushed it onto line managers to handle the Redundancy process. With absolutely no experience it was a complete shit show, each department was handled differently and it made a stressful situation much worse than it should have been for those involved. Don't use a redundancy programme as training for line managers supplied only with a checklist. The effing arseholes in HR thought it was a raging success too.

Keepingthingsinteresting · 09/07/2025 07:50

TaupePoet · 08/07/2025 20:53

“Come to us, we care” and then nothing. HR isn’t there for the employee. It’s there to manage liability and protect the brand. Anyone who’s complained at work knows this.

Well yes, their job is to protect the employer. Not sure why you thought anything else.

Jamesblonde2 · 09/07/2025 08:07

Well quite, the company is paying their salary.

Lavenderflower · 09/07/2025 08:18

The role of HR is to protect the company, however they rarely do protect the companies interest. Hence why there so many tribunal and high staff turnover. Protecting bad managers ruins a company.

Wasitabadger · 09/07/2025 08:42

NigellaAwesome · 09/07/2025 01:34

@Wasitabadger no, not LA in east of England, but to be fair, I don’t think my experience is in any way a one off. I could be describing so many places.

it is horrendous that this does not surprise me in the slightest.