> But don’t forget what their job is, and it’s not to protect your interests, so make sure you have someone at the table who is.
Like a union.
Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend
71–80 of 235 posts
Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend
#72I get the whole "HR can be evil" point, but this article could have also been, "Having friends in management is fine, but management is not your friend". Personally, I'm so sick of the cynicism in general. Can we make points and articles about protecting yourself, as an employee, without resorting to such things? As a manager in a company, I've both had friends in HR and also had HR been my friend. Need to fire that…
> Personally, I'm so sick of the cynicism in general. Personally, I'm so sick of there not being nearly enough cynicism in general. I've met cops that aren't total pieces of shit (who all ended up quitting in less than 5 years), but that doesn't mean cops aren't total pieces of shit. If the nature of the job is unethical, you should rightly call it out as such. HR's job is to pretend to be your friend while doing wha…
>They're the kind of people who are your friends until suddenly they aren't
Happened to me once, I got on the wrong side of some politics and had the awkward termination meeting.
I was civil and cheerful throughout except where I had to be firm and fight my corner: “Pleasure to meet you! Sorry it was under these circumstances, I wish you the best time here!” and I could feel the barely concealed rage emanating from them.
Being in a single party recording jurisdiction was the card up my sleeve, and when I let that slip (after the termination) they looked ready to blow a gasket.
I learned valuable lessons that day about HR, mental health, and how webs can get spun that tangle up idealistic engineers… needless to say, I keep my head down and try to stay out of / avoid starting fights that I don’t stand a chance of winning.
Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
> HR represents the company. Where your goals and the company's aligns HR very often does not even work in the interests of the company. Instead, it works in the interest of the HR employees' own political beliefs, which they then cloak in the language of doing what's right for the company, and connect no matter how loosely to any laws, regulations, etc. that they can use to justify imposing the beliefs they wanted t…
Yep. And Engineers often have pet projects. Marketing often has a slightly odd artistic vision for something. People are gonna be people.
Pet projects by any department that aren't in the interests of the company should be discouraged.
Especially by HR, because unlike an engineering pet project that may waste some time, pet projects by HR can significantly impact the quality of life of every employee at the company, cause people not to join the company or quit the company, and so on.
Dysfunctional HR (which is almost all HR) is just about as bad as having a thieving dishonest CFO or a clueless visionless CEO, in terms of its impact on company prospects.
In comparison, a designer who does their work ever so slightly better than is actually going to have business value, or an engineer who puts 10% of their time into some project that they incorrectly think will help the company, or who chooses the 2nd best tool instead of the 1st best tool because the 2nd best one will look better on their resume, these are all much less significant to the company or to their coworkers.
Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend
#74I get the whole "HR can be evil" point, but this article could have also been, "Having friends in management is fine, but management is not your friend". Personally, I'm so sick of the cynicism in general. Can we make points and articles about protecting yourself, as an employee, without resorting to such things? As a manager in a company, I've both had friends in HR and also had HR been my friend. Need to fire that…
Because employees are not at the same level as managers/HR. The latter have power over the formers. You like it or not, when horrible people happens to have power, well that's the worst combination possible.
Employees cannot fire managers nor HR (it's in theory possible, but in practices it almost never happens). HR and managers can fire employees (this happens every week).
Employees do not know how much money managers or HR make. Managers and HR know how much money employees make.
Employees have to ask managers and HR for sick leave/vacation. Managers and HR do not have to ask employees for sick leave/vacation.
And a long etc.
Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend
#75HR 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 th…
HR is human beings like everyone else in the company. Having friends in HR is definitely a benefit. Same as having friends anywhere else in the org. Ultimately they will tend to protect themselves as will everyone else. When the bottom line dictates something bad has to happen, they likely don't have the juice to stop it. Same goes for everyone outside HR.
Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend
#76I get the whole "HR can be evil" point, but this article could have also been, "Having friends in management is fine, but management is not your friend". Personally, I'm so sick of the cynicism in general. Can we make points and articles about protecting yourself, as an employee, without resorting to such things? As a manager in a company, I've both had friends in HR and also had HR been my friend. Need to fire that…
It's not cynicism. It's realism. The post acknowledges HR can be helpful.
Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend
#77HR 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 th…
> HR represents the company. Where your goals and the company's aligns HR very often does not even work in the interests of the company. Instead, it works in the interest of the HR employees' own political beliefs, which they then cloak in the language of doing what's right for the company, and connect no matter how loosely to any laws, regulations, etc. that they can use to justify imposing the beliefs they wanted t…
HR going rogue with political nonsense (I can only imagine some libertarian HR telling everyone 'deal with it yourselves!' lol) is not the fault of that HR, it's the fault of incompetent executives. The issue is never one individual, it's a broken system letting a single individual negatively influence it.
Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend
#78I get the whole "HR can be evil" point, but this article could have also been, "Having friends in management is fine, but management is not your friend". Personally, I'm so sick of the cynicism in general. Can we make points and articles about protecting yourself, as an employee, without resorting to such things? As a manager in a company, I've both had friends in HR and also had HR been my friend. Need to fire that…
The cynicism does seem like a race to the bottom.
It’s to the point that discussions are derailed by it with folks who feign knowledge about a topic just offer cynicism. Anything that’s doesn’t work right the empty response is a conspiracy of “oh that’s by design” as if people would otherwise always have things working…
It’s endless online.
Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend
#79I 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…
Scariest moment at the growing startup I work for was HR approving an engineering requisition. It may have been just a case of everyone doing whatever tasks are needed, but I gave the engineering director an earful afterward.
What made it scary? The recruiting and onboarding teams in HR have been some of the most helpful folks I've worked with a manager.
Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend
#80I get the whole "HR can be evil" point, but this article could have also been, "Having friends in management is fine, but management is not your friend". Personally, I'm so sick of the cynicism in general. Can we make points and articles about protecting yourself, as an employee, without resorting to such things? As a manager in a company, I've both had friends in HR and also had HR been my friend. Need to fire that…
I get what you’re saying but don’t think the Catbert analogy is apropos here. What I have seen as a senior tech executive and old person is that young people entering the workforce after around 2015-6 often rely on HR to be a neutral arbiter in workplace conflicts, analogous to parental chaperones or university administrators. What I believe the author is trying to convey is that this misunderstanding can have disast…
>>What I have seen as a senior tech executive and old person is that young people entering the workforce after around 2015-6 often rely on HR to be a neutral arbiter in workplace conflicts, analogous to parental chaperones or university administrators.
Yep - seen it many times when employees (usually younger) say things like "I'm telling HR" or "I'm reporting you to HR", as if it's the same as "I'm telling Mom", and expecting HR to swoop in and rule in their favor on some workplace dispute - thats not there job, never was, never will be.
While you (the complaining employee) are doing that, the back-channel communication to the manager is telling them how they should probably document 'whatever' in writing so that when you eventually get terminated they have a contemporaneous record of all your bad behavior to use against you.
HR is not your friend, they are not supposed to be.