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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

#201

Post by marcosdumay »

stevenkovar wrote: post #169

In essence, HR is the buffer between humans and systems. They create the systems that allow humans to do things like work and be compensated for their work, or to work in an environment where they can expect not to be harassed—at baseline. They clean up everyone's mess when the interface between human and system is compromised. If a system breaks down, it's HR's job to figure out how to handle the errors. Every compa…

> They clean up everyone's mess when the interface between human and system is compromised.

Yeah, that reminds me of the Pulp Fiction movie.

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

#202

Post by vlod »

rippercushions wrote: post #197
vlod wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't really matter. If HR are the employee facing 'front' of the company and do all the work of booking flight, hotels, transport etc then the buck stops with them. i.e. If one is a tech/product team lead with an external client, you can't blame a developer (below you in the food chain) for screwing up. All screens/functionality has to be verified before the client sees it. If not, you'll more than likely look lik…

I've never worked in a company where HR does flight and hotel bookings. Just how many people work in your company? Or are you using "HR" to refer broadly to everybody working in any type of administrative role? In my (typical) company, HR sets travel policy but everything else about travel, down to approving expense reports, is outsourced to vendors or other departments.

This was for a v.large investment bank.

There are most likely other departments, but HR generally manage all of the trip details and are the front for the employee. i.e. to save the employee wasting a bunch of time talking to X number of depts (that don't return calls etc) to try and get things setup.

i.e. From a costing perspective, you don't want senior people or super busy (and expensive) engineers wasting a bunch of time.

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

#203

Post by protastus »

epicureanideal wrote: post #118
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago I read an article in a business magazine, Forbes or Inc., that surveyed CEOs and found over half of them fear their company's HR department. It seems HR has evolved to be independent of many company's management structure and answerable only to itself.

HR has evolved into political commissars, of the 1918-1924, 1937-1942 variety: > The political commissar held military rank equaling the unit commander to whom he was attached; moreover, the commissar also had the military authority to countermand the unit-commander's orders at any time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_commissar

Depends on the company. In large companies it's very common for the vast majority of HR matters to be delegated to contractors or fresh out of college hires, with no experience managing people, and little authority.

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

#204

Post by 7952 »

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 guess part of the raison d'etre in larger companies is precisely to make humans measurable. And that is necessary to make a company manageable by executives. Although I think in some businesses that kind of work is largely performative.

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

#205

Post by lliamander »

epicureanideal wrote: post #200
lliamander wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not entirely the executives' fault. The ambiguities in civil rights law mean that often one has to employ a more politically radical HR department to shield against lawsuits.

I was looking for a link I know exists about this. Do you happen to know the very long article, or maybe book that was written about this topic?

https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/woke-institutions-is-j...

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

#206

Post by 7952 »

elil17 wrote: post #32
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…

If someone's going to drive company culture, why shouldn't it be HR? They seem well qualified to do so. For example, someone in HR would be in a good position to do the research to figure out if work-from-home improves productivity or employee happiness, and they would also understand the tax and legal implications of a possible work-from-home policy.

Surely the correct qualification for that kind of research would be some kind of science background.

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

#207

Post by nullsense »

bushbaba wrote: post #129
elil17 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well don't go to a lawyer in a big city? You can easily interact with a lawyer virtually. Even if all they do is tell you what you could find out in a Google search if you knew what to search, it's going to be more useful for the average person because lawyers have the confidence to interpret legal terminology, contextualize what they are telling you, and recognize what is and is not normal (e.g. notice predatory ter…

I wonder if basic legal issues will one day be handled by something like chatGPT.

It would have to stop confidently making bullshit first I would imagine.

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

#208

Post by nullsense »

beckingz wrote: post #63
Cupertino95014 wrote: post #49

Someone once said to me, "HR is there to protect the company from the employees." Always keep that in mind. That's what they're paid for. For some reason, I also think of the quote [1] from Bleak House , "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!" In the old days, they were called "Personnel." Now that's too old-fashioned, and pretty soon the name "HR" will be, too, so they'll call it something els…

"People & Culture" is the new hot term.

Or "people experience"

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

#209

Post by nullsense »

paxys wrote: post #36

People think the "resource" in human resources means that the team is available as a resource for employees should they need anything. In reality you are the resource they are referring to.

I never got the impression anyone thought that? I always thought it was widely understood that we were the resources.
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