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Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

cdoyle.me

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Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

#21

Post by Spoom »

HR represents the company. Where your goals and the company's aligns, they can be helpful. Where they diverge, perhaps less so.

I think a lot of these sorts of articles discount the idea that your goals and the company's will frequently align. For example, if you're being harassed, it's very often in the company's interest to stop that happening. It will cause you and perhaps more people to quit if they don't, and there might be legal risk. If you're productive and impactful, it's often in their interest to help you with career goals.

Things get muddy when you e.g. have a problem with your manager, or folks above you. Then HR has to determine which side to back based on what they feel is most helpful to the company's goals, or what is less risky. But even then, consider that they might want to avoid bad press, lawsuits, etc. If the situation is bad for you, it could be bad for the company too, but it's worth thinking about deeply before going to HR.

Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

#22

Post by throwaway98797 »

abalashov wrote: post #5

Prior to going out on my own at a precociously young age, my time in corporate America (~3.5 years) was fairly brief, and less than half of it spent at companies large enough to have an HR apparatus in any meaningful sense. I always found their seeming double-agent role confusing and ambiguous in a slightly sinister way, even as they preached that they were there for us workforce people if we needed anything.

anything in a large enough company is a cog and should be treated as such

legal, accounting, finance, the lower people in those orgs are best helpful drones, at worst agents of petty chaos

Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

#24

Post by monkeydust »

msla wrote: post #7

Companies in general aren't anyone's friend, in that, ideally, a company is a machine designed to make money within the constraints of law and the ethical rules the leadership decides to follow. Companies, like nations, have no friends, only interests.

Yea 20 years of work and this holds very true. Some are obviously better than others about how the manage employee interests vs theirs, best align both tightly as possible, owning equity for me is key to this.

Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

#26

Post by none_to_remain »

seneca wrote: post #6

I disagree with the "mostly harmless" take in the article. HR is the group everyone, regardless of where they stand in a company, must be the most careful in dealing with. They are beurocrats and, in modern western companies, are becoming ideological commissars. One of the strongest suggestions I would make to anyone going into white collar work is to avoid HR as much as possible, and be extremely careful of everythi…

Yep. This article says HR works for the company's interests, not yours. I think instead maybe HR works for HR's interests.

Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

#27

Post by darth_avocado »

elil17 wrote: post #9
darth_avocado wrote: post #4

> Your employer definitely got legal advice on anything they put in front of you, why shouldn’t you do the same before signing? Because it costs $700/hour

If you're hiring a top law firm. Plenty of lawyers can be had for $100/hour and are well qualified to review employment terms.

If you’re in any big city, you’re not going to get more than a “consultation” of half an hour for $100. Most of the answers you’ll get in that meeting are the ones you can find by a quick Google search, anything more and it will cost you a lot more.

The only cheap option, if you’re lucky, is the local bar association usually does pro bono office hours that you could possibly sign up for and get in. Those don’t work for time sensitive issues like when you have to sign a contract by X date.

Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

#28

Post by bwestergard »

The whole concept of a "human resources" department was developed as a response to workers organizing unions to bargain over terms and conditions of employment. Whatever the flaws of some unions, they are ultimately economically dependent on their members, and the officers are elected. HR is accountable only to executives.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/human-resources-me-too-sexu...

Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

#29

Post by benburleson »

civilized wrote: post #8
abalashov wrote: post #5

Prior to going out on my own at a precociously young age, my time in corporate America (~3.5 years) was fairly brief, and less than half of it spent at companies large enough to have an HR apparatus in any meaningful sense. I always found their seeming double-agent role confusing and ambiguous in a slightly sinister way, even as they preached that they were there for us workforce people if we needed anything.

The dehumanizing name "Human Resources" says it all, doesn't it? We're not people. We're not even workers. We're just resources that happen to be members of the human species. Similar to other resources like staplers. There's no perfect euphemism for what HR does, but something like... I don't know... Workforce Management? Would be a little less awful, I think?

I've noticed this as well. Especially going through layoffs. It's not "people" getting "fired," it's "resources impacted." Oh, it's also not a "layoff," it's a "reduction in force."

Maybe I'm old-school, but give it to me straight.

Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

#30

Post by throwaway98797 »

thekiptxt wrote: post #11
darth_avocado wrote: post #4

> Your employer definitely got legal advice on anything they put in front of you, why shouldn’t you do the same before signing? Because it costs $700/hour

Thank you! Honestly this is one of my biggest pet peeves with any “consult a $SPECIALIST” advice. Yes, if my money and time were endless, this is sound advice. Tangentially, when I express frustration at police incompetence in knowing the law (I live in the US, and many law enforcement officers are under-trained), a common response is “this shouldn’t be an issue as you can follow up in court and get the charges dismi…

plus, you have to trust you judgement that said expert is a good expert and at that point might as well just risk it and go without

all experts are mostly useful after 10k-100k and even then they suck.

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