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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

#101

Post by maximinus_thrax »

Spoom wrote: post #21

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 th…

> For example, if you're being harassed, it's very often in the company's interest to stop that happening.

I agree with this. However, the implementation might not be what the employee would expect. If the victim is moved to another team or fired and the aggressor doesn't face any consequences, the harassment was still stopped, so I guess mission accomplished?

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that if you're in such a position, reach out to HR only after you have secured your own legal protection and never expect nor trust the company to be on your side.

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

#102

Post by dghughes »

frellus wrote: post #10

I 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…

Well then HR should stop pretending to be everyone's friend.

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

#103

Post by mythhouse »

frellus wrote: post #10

I 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…

> Need to fire that horrible employee who is demoralizing the team and not being productive? HR is your friend.

Maybe if you are ending up with so many of these 'horrible employees' that you need to make friends with HR then maybe problem is somewhere else.

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

#104

Post by t43562 »

andix wrote: post #81

HR is your business partner. You can be friends, as long as you are able to keep business separate from friendship. And stopping yourself, when the friendship exposes too much that influences the business. I think business follows some very clear rules, compared to friendship. It’s always about money. The decision is always in the direction that is the cheapest and brings the most profit. Friendship can help there, i…

Cheapest/most profit as the ultimate goal is potentially a cultural thing - long term versus short term benefit might be valued more e.g. in Japan. and less in e.g. the US or the UK.

What you say about the cost of replacing people IS the argument I used for getting one of my team a raise. There's no doubt it's very time consuning and difficult to get suitable new people and well worth the small amount this one wanted.

Now that I'm on the other side of the line I can see that one doesn't want to hire people who are going to fight you all the time or (even worse) fight everyone else and cause trouble. Bad/good as that may be .....

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

#105

Post by D13Fd »

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.

I agree $700/hr is higher than necessary. But I'm not sure what kind of lawyer you are going to get for $100/hr if you're talking about within the U.S.

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

#106

Post by dotgov »

crmd wrote: post #44
frellus wrote: post #10

I 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…

This hit the nail on the head for me.

I entered the workforce a bit earlier than 2015 and I would have expected HR to be a neutral arbiter as well. My experience at different employers has proven my expectations to be wrong or at least naive. On every occasion I needed to interact with HR, information (eg. applicable laws) was selectively filtered to make it look like my only option was the one that was beneficial to the business.

YMMV, but for me this is good advice and a welcome reminder.

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

#107

Post by mytailorisrich »

Spoom wrote: post #21

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 th…

HR mainly does admin (pay, leaves, etc) and advises management on how to avoid employment-related lawsuits, they also advise on employment market trends (e.g. 'this is what the industry pays for this sort of job so if we want to attract people we need to adjust accordingly').

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

#108

Post by gitfan86 »

Spoom wrote: post #21

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 th…

Also don't forget to take into account short term vs long term goals. Yes a sexual harassment lawsuit is very bad, but that isn't going to happen immediately. So they may chose the short term solution and try to sweep it under the rug.

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

#109

Post by tflinton »

HR can be a blessing to some employees; there have been one occasion at my previous job where an employee was given an increase simply because HR found they had dropped below the 10th percentile in their salary band.

In another situation HR has forced an increase because of a personal rating even though the budget for increases in the department didn't have funding for it (effectively HR forced a budget increase due to the rating of the employee).

Both of these times i've found them to be a welcome and helpful surprise.

That said, it is very true if you're filing a discrimination complaint or otherwise putting the company at risk you're implicitly putting yourself and the person you're accusing into the looking glass, and that could bite you in the butt if HR decides the manager isn't at fault.

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

#110

Post by endisneigh »

briffle wrote: post #82
Spoom wrote: post #21

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 th…

> For example, if you're being harassed, it's very often in the company's interest to stop that happening. Unless of course, the harraser is a top performer, or VIP in their market. Remeber all that fun with Susan Fowler, an engineer at Uber that went public with her harrasment? Or the ever infamous https://archive.ph/dUJNs In those cases, like you said, HR protected the interests of the Company, which was in preserv…

Though in retrospect given this conversation HR didn’t realize it was more in their interest to help Susan than the top performer
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