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HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

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Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#151

Post by david38 »

hypervisorxxx wrote: post #139
jiggawatts wrote: post #14

Many people think that they live in a free democracy. In reality, something like 50% of all working people are employed in a strict hierarchical organisation that is essentially feudal in its nature. Most employees are the equivalent of serfs, overseen by lords, with a king in charge. The common employees don't get a vote. Their managers are not elected. They don't get a say in policy. The managers in turn form a str…

My friend and I (both females) one the CEO of a tech company and me a Staff Engineer, have talked about how to do HR right and we came up with an idea but havnt done anything with it. Since HR is clearly biased towards the companies and this has proven to cause a lot of problems, they will never side with you over the company if the company is indeed wrong. HR should ideally be an independent third party and all issu…

That’s what arbitration is supposed to be. Independent. Yet, it’s not. If you don’t side with the org that butters your bread, you lose the contract.

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#152

Post by DanHulton »

hypervisorxxx wrote: post #139
jiggawatts wrote: post #14

Many people think that they live in a free democracy. In reality, something like 50% of all working people are employed in a strict hierarchical organisation that is essentially feudal in its nature. Most employees are the equivalent of serfs, overseen by lords, with a king in charge. The common employees don't get a vote. Their managers are not elected. They don't get a say in policy. The managers in turn form a str…

My friend and I (both females) one the CEO of a tech company and me a Staff Engineer, have talked about how to do HR right and we came up with an idea but havnt done anything with it. Since HR is clearly biased towards the companies and this has proven to cause a lot of problems, they will never side with you over the company if the company is indeed wrong. HR should ideally be an independent third party and all issu…

I would love to work for a place like this, but I can't imagine a company choosing to pay for this HR service unless forced to by law. They can already get the version of HR that will side with them every time. Why pay money for a version that might rule against you?

That said, I can see an eventual path for this. The "problem companies" definitely won't be interested, at least at first, and the only companies that would choose this are the ones least likely to need it. Given time and publicity, these companies may have an easier time hiring, until eventually there is sufficient pressure on the "problem companies" that they feel they have to change to this to continue to hire.

That might have an okay shot in industries like tech, where you could argue that employees still have a lot of choice in employer. I don't see it working in other industries (that could probably use it a lot more), like the legal industry or food production.

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#153

Post by semi-extrinsic »

xornor wrote: post #129
tehjoker wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if we tried to make it so there were no lords? Just a thought.

You just get much worse lords and lose all your freedoms which you may still have. Free market democracy is not ideal system, but it offers at least some freedoms for serfs. All other systems take them all away.

Yes, the social democracies of Europe where governement restrict the rights of corporations for the benefits of people are just a fantasy invented by left-wing media, in reality people living there are all suffering. /s

Honestly, it is still jarring to see people in the US actually believe the system they are living in is some sort of "lessest evil system", not realizing how much easier they would have it in Scandinavia/Germany/France/Switzerland/Netherlands/Belgium/etc. And this is a region with comparable population and resources to the US.

I mean, just think about implementing socialized healthcare, a proper tax system which is short and understandable with few loopholes, a reasonable minimum wage and parental leave for all paid by the federal government. Those are a handful of measures that would significantly improve life for 99.5% of everyone in the US. And there is no plausible mechanism where these measures take away all your freedoms.

Sure you can argue that it's impossible to get American politicians to enact these. But that is just another point of failure of the free market democracy, that elected politicians are most interested in the outcomes for people and organizations who pay them money (literally or indirectly), and not in the people they are elected to represent.

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#154

Post by hypervisorxxx »

david38 wrote: post #151
hypervisorxxx wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend and I (both females) one the CEO of a tech company and me a Staff Engineer, have talked about how to do HR right and we came up with an idea but havnt done anything with it. Since HR is clearly biased towards the companies and this has proven to cause a lot of problems, they will never side with you over the company if the company is indeed wrong. HR should ideally be an independent third party and all issu…

That’s what arbitration is supposed to be. Independent. Yet, it’s not. If you don’t side with the org that butters your bread, you lose the contract.

Good point but if this went mainstream it could be considered a requirement the same way a good growing company behind a fledgling startup will never get away with hiring people full-time unless they supply a healthcare plan and other standard benefits most employees at respectable companies receive, to the point there is no chance they could not be competitive with out them.

And that's the thing really. They could be required to have them, so then it's just a matter of which ones are competitive to the employees.

I would love to apply to a company, ask who their third party HR is and say oh man that one SUCKS and everyone knows it. Sorry, gonna take a job at this other company who had external HR with much better rankings, the same way I might for more competitive healthcare plans or benefits between to equally competitive jobs.

Of course companies do not want to spend money on things like 401k matching healthcare and the otherwise but they will if enough companies do it to the point they look sketchy if they do not only provide these benefits but provide these benefits through respectable third parties.

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#155

Post by pjmlp »

hypervisorxxx wrote: post #139
jiggawatts wrote: post #14

Many people think that they live in a free democracy. In reality, something like 50% of all working people are employed in a strict hierarchical organisation that is essentially feudal in its nature. Most employees are the equivalent of serfs, overseen by lords, with a king in charge. The common employees don't get a vote. Their managers are not elected. They don't get a say in policy. The managers in turn form a str…

My friend and I (both females) one the CEO of a tech company and me a Staff Engineer, have talked about how to do HR right and we came up with an idea but havnt done anything with it. Since HR is clearly biased towards the companies and this has proven to cause a lot of problems, they will never side with you over the company if the company is indeed wrong. HR should ideally be an independent third party and all issu…

There are outsourced HR management companies, that hardly changes anything, the company is still the one paying their contract.

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#156

Post by xg15 »

roenxi wrote: post #147
MattGaiser wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike the serf, I can go find another Lord. I can pit the lords against each other for a better deal. I can try and become my own lord. HR has a lot fewer tools than the inquisition. Fear of lawsuits reduces their toolkit even further.

While gp is using slightly emotive language, they didn't at any point say that the feudal structure was bad . A feudal structure is pretty effective in a localised setting where most people know most other people and everyone is happy-enough with the person at the pinacle of the status tree. The major downsides of old-school feudalism were (1) Doesn't really scale to populations of 200k+ and (2) the We Cannot Get Out…

Er, nope. Or at least you cannot call this system a democracy of 50% if all decisions are done in a feudal system or are done to appease the lord.

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#158

Post by pjmlp »

Boritanian wrote: post #79
jiggawatts wrote: post #14

Many people think that they live in a free democracy. In reality, something like 50% of all working people are employed in a strict hierarchical organisation that is essentially feudal in its nature. Most employees are the equivalent of serfs, overseen by lords, with a king in charge. The common employees don't get a vote. Their managers are not elected. They don't get a say in policy. The managers in turn form a str…

A serf cannot 'quit' his lord. An employee can. Everybody can say 'NO' to the CEO. What you cannot do is agree to exchange your work for his money, and then when he asks you to work, say 'NO'. If you do not wish to work, simply cancel this arrangement. And the inquisition could BURN YOU ALIVE. HR cannot even physically touch you for fear of the lawsuit. This comparison is such an insult to the people who had laid the…

> A serf cannot 'quit' his lord. An employee can.

An employee thinks they can, in many countries they can't, as there isn't any other job to do.

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#159

Post by hypervisorxxx »

DanHulton wrote: post #152
hypervisorxxx wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend and I (both females) one the CEO of a tech company and me a Staff Engineer, have talked about how to do HR right and we came up with an idea but havnt done anything with it. Since HR is clearly biased towards the companies and this has proven to cause a lot of problems, they will never side with you over the company if the company is indeed wrong. HR should ideally be an independent third party and all issu…

I would love to work for a place like this, but I can't imagine a company choosing to pay for this HR service unless forced to by law. They can already get the version of HR that will side with them every time. Why pay money for a version that might rule against you? That said, I can see an eventual path for this. The "problem companies" definitely won't be interested, at least at first, and the only companies that w…

Yup. My point exactly.

Do you think companies want to waste money on 401k matching or healthcare benefits? They don't. They do it because it's either required by law in some capacity and for when it isn't it's because it's such a uniform standard for any nonfledling startup company who wants to hire someone full-time they would look like idiots for not only providing these benefits but providing them from respectable third parties. Over time these things became standardized and highly regulated and that's a good thing.

You're right, if we had to rely on the goodwill of a company this most certainly would not happen. I don't think it would happen overnight but I do believe the best and brightest will go for places who offer competitive advantages and others will follow suit.

If it garners high quality employees then make the company profitable in the same way every startup wants to pretend they are like google with video games and playrooms and brightly colored walls and provided lunches, actually not treating your employees like crap if they have an issue with another employee is also a competitive benefit that could become a trend for any company who wants to be competitive.

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#160

Post by thayne »

hypervisorxxx wrote: post #139
jiggawatts wrote: post #14

Many people think that they live in a free democracy. In reality, something like 50% of all working people are employed in a strict hierarchical organisation that is essentially feudal in its nature. Most employees are the equivalent of serfs, overseen by lords, with a king in charge. The common employees don't get a vote. Their managers are not elected. They don't get a say in policy. The managers in turn form a str…

My friend and I (both females) one the CEO of a tech company and me a Staff Engineer, have talked about how to do HR right and we came up with an idea but havnt done anything with it. Since HR is clearly biased towards the companies and this has proven to cause a lot of problems, they will never side with you over the company if the company is indeed wrong. HR should ideally be an independent third party and all issu…

It's a nice idea, but in practice what would likely happen is the "third party" HR contractors would still generally side with the company, because the company is the one paying them, and if the company doesn't like their decisions, they may stop paying them.
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