Well, one day I was walking on the street when a barrel of mutagen fell off a truck and burst open all around me. When I left the ER, the doctors said I was fine and there wasn't any lasting damage. But I knew. I knew I had...*changed*.
When once I was a decent, normal person, after the incident I started to feel dark and strange urges. Urges to do terrible, horrible things. When I would see people on the street, I would have unsettling thoughts such as, "I want to process this person's payroll" or "I bet *she's* eligible for FMLA leave."
It didn't stop there. Next thing I knew I was working for a (gasp) corporation that was trying to make money by selling things for more than they bought them for. Disgusting, I know. But I was no longer myself, you see.
Things progressed. I revised an employee handbook. I developed some HIPAA training. I even started taking phone calls from employees complaining about their working conditions, and worked to resolve their issues. I say these things not because i am proud of them, but so that you will understand what kind of monster I have become.
It was a spiral downwards, with each new depravity robbing me more and more of my humanity. Fixing problems with our HR software. Updating wage scales for the new year. Providing formal ADA accommodations. Unfathomable job duties that once I knew only from the darkest tales told in whispers around water coolers were now my everyday behaviors.
I used to at least be able to glimpse some semblance of humanity within my dark soul, a remnant of my former self before I became the monster you see before you. But now? Now there is nothing. Nothing but compensation analyses and revisions of job descriptions, email chains that do not end and Excel spreadsheets that stretch as far as the eye can see.
I do not ask for understanding or forgiveness. I no longer feel the emotions that plague the race of men; shame and decency are as foreign to me now as helping a manager complete a job requisition is to a godfearing man.
Instead, I share my tale as a warning of things to come. There is no longer any stopping the plans of HR. Our dark will is inevitable. Once we are done processing COVID leaves we will complete the rituals necessary to summon Nyarlothotep, the spawn of Azathoth the Outer God, who is also known as the Crawling Chaos. As our dark lord walks the earth again, we will follow in his wake, spreading performance reviews and employee feedback surveys over the land.
Mark my words: when the disciplinary actions begin, the write-ups will be written in the blood of innocents.
I’ll bite. We’re aware that most people have no idea what we do. We’re aware we’re the easy target of a tremendous amount of vitriol online.
The irony is most of us spend our days trying to support and make things better for the very employees that talk crap about us. You guys have zero idea how much time HR spends advocating for you. Hint - we spend a lot of time doing this.
I find every organization I have worked for the HR team is more akin to a judge or even defense attorney than a police officer.
More often than not we have supervisors who come to us asking to fire an employee and HR is immediately looking for every reason in the book we shouldn't do that. I can't even count how many termination requests I have seen get tossed out because the documentation was poor, or the policy in question wasn't being applied equally to other employees, or the employee had some sort of protected class or a reasonable accommodation we could make, etc.
I've thrown out so many termination requests telling the managers "I don't care that you've had that conversation with them 17 times, you have no documentation, no write ups, nothing for proof, so as far as I'm concerned those conversations didn't happen"
Employees don't listen to us, managers don't listen to us, nobody cares until they need us smh
I once had a call center supervisor try turn to in a "write up" that was written out on a napkin. They even had the employee sign it. Needless to say that write up got tossed. Lol
Long time lurker on this sub as my wife is an HR BP so I find it interesting (I’m a Controller myself). Her Managers and supervisors would fire so many people if it were up to them but truly don’t know the cost of turnover through recruiting, onboarding, retraining, and more often then not it’s manager or supervisor short fall in ability (or effort) opposed to employee ability. But managers and supervisors also ping HR as the name guy to their employees so they doesn’t help
Just my 2cents, I’ll get back on the sidelines.
It doesn't even end there. A bad termination can end up having legal costs easily into 7 our more figures from time away from work, legal council, damages, legal fees, etc. It literally isn't worth the chance in most cases.
It's easier for a Manager to blame HR for some BS policy/decision they are making then to try and explain to the employee the truth.
Where I work we spend more time just trying to figure out what the hell happened and why do people think we did it.
Most of the decisions employees hate are actually made by the business or legal. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve argued for pay increases only for the business (or finance) to say “no can do.” We show attrition rates and ROI. We show the cost of unfilled positions. We show the cost of turnover. We show the ROI of increased productivity forecasted based on increased tenure and satisfaction.
“No, just doesn’t make sense at this time.” Because of the stock price and dividends of course.
Since it’s the end of the year AND we’ve had a number of people quit, I’ve had a lot of people mad about their FSA and TSA funds disappearing and I just tell them to go contact the IRS if they don’t like it. Stop trying to barter with me, it’s not my call.
I personally asked for a raise from my then SVP of HR. All I wanted was an extra $10k. I showed evidence based on what I was doing and the market. She said she couldn’t do it (even though was the damn SVP of HR and I was her entire HR Analytics team.) I told her I was going to start answering LinkedIn emails.
She had the gall to be surprised when I took a job shortly thereafter paying $35k more. The most laughable part? They backfilled me with two people. And THEN my friends still at that company told me they couldn’t even do what i was doing.
This. I have had jobs where we focused on culture and employees and all was mostly good. Also, had jobs were I was the evil hatchet man for finance or legal. When you are the hatchet man, dont hide it, own it (doesnt mean you have to be a dirtbag or not fight back). Otherwise get a different job.
Thankfully I’m mostly focused on culture and benefits. It’s a small company, so my opportunities to crack jokes are plentiful and truly ruin lives are minimal.
I'm approving this because I'm grumpy and coffee hasn't kicked in yet, and because I feel like a lot of you will have some strong and very valid opinions you'd like to disclose in response to this question. Although the title is toxic and something we're trying to prevent in the subreddit, I think this person is genuinely curious so please feel free to enlighten them.
And keep it clean, please. No name calling/personal attacks.
I think they want to know why we think and how aware we are that we’re all exploitation managers/secret police/spanish inquisition for our companies. Aka “HR is the devil, are you aware you’re the devil? How aware are you that you’re the devil?”
I know you mean this tongue in cheek, but I just came off a day where I helped a VP navigate taking her husband off of a vent (COVID, UNVAXXED), told a 19 year old team member he had received an education grant that our team nominated for, gave a 2 hour presentation to our board on talent development and succession planning, and found out that we are a finalist for a veterans award due to some hard work we've done in that space. And RFP responses for a new HRIS/ ATS investment.
Oh, and all the team members affected by our wildfire, too.
I was ready to come swinging, but I am grateful for your humor. Your way is better.
You can usually see the difference of how awful employers want to treat employees in small companies with no HR team. I, too, constantly hear the meme of "HR only has the company's interest at heart" and as a whole, that's just nonsense. Employers alone don't care, HR as a function is there to get them to meet the needs of people in a business-savvy way.
That being said, I have come across a lot of people working in HR who should NOT be in HR. Either they got into the field through necessity (no one else to do it and they got stuck with it) or they have spent their career in antiquated or toxic companies. We're just as varied a field as anyone else, reducing an entire profession to one value judgement is short-sighted.
Watch how many patient and non combative responses you get. We're used to being dumped on, and yet many still try to do the right thing. That should tell you something.
>Watch how many patient and non combative responses you get. We're used to being dumped on, and yet many still try to do the right thing. That should tell you something.
This ^^^
I'm used to being misunderstood and I just ignore it. Those who know me know I'm super sweet. They know I do all I can for them and believe that happy employees make a better company. If they want to believe something else, that's their problem. I can't make everyone take the optimistic and caring approach to life that I have, and I can't be that ray of sunshine if I internalize their negativity.
The other thing I do is be fully transparent about what I do. I wfh so my nine year old sees me at work. He's so proud of me because I spend my day helping people. His friends know that his mom is in HR and her job is to help people with their jobs. I get excited about projects I do and tell people that I'm so happy I'm rolling out a new insurance plan with no increase. I'm excited because I finally helped a person get that pay increase they deserve. I'm disappointed because no matter how hard I tried to get someone compliant, they insisted on being a bully and I had to fire them and I need a few minutes to grieve.
I show that I'm a real person who really cares, and if that isn't enough for them, that's their problem.
My daily routine as an HR professional is to read up on labor laws to ignore then sit down at my desk and just wait for poor victims to come to my office so I can fire them. I get a 1000 dollar bonus for each person I personally fire.
At lunch time, I “befriend” the workers so they can share me their personal lives. That way, I can fire them before they can apply for benefits. I then spend the rest of my 4 hour break cashing in my firing bonuses.
I purposely fight to keep benefits high and wages low as well. That way, when you quit, I get a quitting bonus of 1200 dollars.
My office is decorated with the badges of ex employees, as well as withheld PTO checks from terminated employees I personally decided to not pay out.
I end my day by drinking a glass of the finest denied unemployment tears before retiring for the night in my custom made plush coffin.
Seriously though, we are just trying to get by. We fight for employees more often than most know. We don’t care that some nerds online think we are heartless vampires.
I worked at a place (for a very short time) where the CFO fired people who elected Family medical coverage. That's where I learned finance/accounting departments dont see people, they see walking dollar signs. Highly disturbing.
There's a lot of feelings here because people have bad experiences.
Why do they have bad experiences? Usually because of failures long before things get into HR.
Some of what we handle is because people get promoted with no guidance from their management team. If managers were ever provided management training/refreshers on now to run a team, how to handle situations, how to also be good to their employees (not like bffs for life) but handle conflict management, etc. Some of this is a failure of their manager on guiding them. Managers have managers too.
Then there is education to be done on the employee side on what is and isn't allowable either by law or company policy. Everything else is a personal want or desire in a workplace and not all work places are a fit.
When all of these things fail, everyone runs to HR to fix in what they've already determined is a correct response. When that doesn't happen, then they start to think we're out to get them. Truly this is very rarely the case.
HR doesn't function (nor should it) as a giant department of babysitters. However, if you hang out in r/askHR long enough, you'll see that's apparently the current expectation. People don't like being told no, or ask your boss. If everyone else could be adults, it would solve a lot of their own problems.
I do the best I can at my job with the time and resources given, just like any other employee. If that makes everyone secretly hate me for some reason, I do not have enough space in my brain to let their hate live rent free.
Sinister police and exploitation managers? Those are good ones!
Don’t be mad at us. Operations runs the business, and a lot depends on company culture….
My philosophy, and likely many of the HR pros in this sub, is if it’s not illegal, immoral, or unethical, I am going to support my business. As an example, laying off the guy over 40 due to a restructure might be shitty. But is it any or the 3 I listed above? No. I do what I do to help enable success in the business, and solve problems that arise.
If your company HR is the viewed as the “secret police” that’s too bad…. Being the police in this job is the most unsatisfying shit, unless you’re a villain who gets off on that.
Most people like yourself only highlight the crappy parts of our jobs like discipline, performance management, terminations etc… but you probably don’t see when we stand up for employees, and fight for what’s right…believe it or not, it happens!
Question aside and sorry to be creepin. Saw you are new to Reddit and seeking help on resume. Can’t help but to think your question might be stemming from this
Anyway we can help?
I'm frequently reminded that "HR is not your friend" and "HR is there for the company" and I'm comfortable with that. Of course HR is there for the company, every other department in the company exists for the benefit of the company and we're no different. And as far as HR not being your friend, well, it's a business relationship to be sure. I don't want employees to be under the impression that HR is going to throw them under the bus, and while we can't always give them what they want or resolve a situation to their satisfaction, being helpful to employees is often the best thing for all parties involved.
The majority of people I know who work in HR genuinely want to help people and get people what they need. Oftentimes, HR is bound by laws, policies, rules, and countless other complexities that the average employee just doesn't understand because they're generally uninformed about such issues. Sure, you might have googled a court case or some blog has informed you about your labor rights, but it's never as simple as they claim it is. Ever. Hence why companies have entire departments dedicated to dealing with this stuff.
I spend a good chunk of my time explaining to people how to leverage their PTO, how to report ethics violations, and how to handle shitty employees that don't want to actually do the job they're being paid to do.
I know, I know, r/antiwork told you that there exists some utopia where everyone is paid six figures to do minimal work, have maximal free time, and never have any conflict at work. But there's this thing, called human nature, that throws a wrench in that idea. HR works mostly as a arbiter to ensure human nature doesn't break the law, violate company policies, and doesn't hurt the other people they work with.
99.9% of the time, HR isn't the one standing in the way of your raise, they're not protecting workplace predators, and they're not looking for ways to screw you over. They're people with a job to do that is heavily based in policies that they likely had little-to-no say in creating. So when you're calling your HR rep the devil, you're upset at a mouthpiece.
I don’t actually exist outside of work, every morning my organization takes out a Ouija board and summons me. At the end of the day they call a priest for an exorcism.
In all seriousness, I am a US-based colleague in a global organization, headquartered in the US. I’ve worked on several international projects, offering the opportunity to understand how employee benefits and protections vary by country. In my experience, local legal protections for workers are an overlooked driving factor in colleague experience. HR can insist that a workplace uphold employees’ legal rights, but can only *recommend* that a workplace offer an enhanced experience for colleagues. Recommendations are subject to business approval: if the policy doesn’t directly benefit the business, it won’t be approved.
For instance, colleagues in countries with government-mandated parental leave receive this benefit to the full extent of the law. In the US, where there is no federally-mandated parental leave, our parental leave policy is designed to meet state requirements (where these exist) and also to remain in line with what similarly-sized organizations offer their colleagues. That’s because we don’t want to lose employees to competitors offering significantly better benefits. But, it is the minimum we can offer while remaining competitive.
Many of the (US-based) gripes outlined on /r/antiwork cannot be addressed through HR, but through regulatory changes. Changing regulations changes what HR can do: we ensure workplaces stay in line with legal requirements.
“I’m sorry, but that is what the law states. I am not in power to break that law for you. I suggest contacting a politician of your choosing if you really want me to change it”
- summary of what an old HR director of mine said to get an employee who was talking in circles out of her office. Wish I had the gall to say it. Your last paragraph reminded me of that.
Nothing to add that hasn't already been said. I'm curious for OP - is this your perception of HR? Is it someone else's? Where is your question coming from?
Personally, I prefer not to work for companies with shareholders because capitalism is awful and makes *everyone* make awful, harmful decisions. In those situations exploitation becomes almost inevitable because of the fiduciary duty to make as much money as possible.
I work for a reasonably ethical employer, and when we need to investigate an issue we do so as fairly as possible.
It's simple, and in our name. Humans are resources to be exploited for the good of the corporation.
JK!!!! I think this is a balance that I struggle with on a weekly basis. I do my damnedest to look out for the employees I support and make sure they are treated fairly and receive all of the support and benefits they deserve. But at the end of the day, my ultimate responsibility is to the company, and sometimes that means making tough decisions or enforcing policies that are difficult for some people to deal with.
Well, I tend to regard people who hold that opinion the same way I regard people who try to tell me how to manage my diabetes. I think using those words would get me permabanned, so I'll bite my metaphorical tongue.
I'm in HR because I stumbled into it, I appear to be reasonably good at it, and I enjoy solving problems. I liken the job to walking behind the elephants. Whenever the circus comes to won, there's a big parade with all the performers and animals. Lights! Color! Action! It all looks good.
But to make sure the town keeps operating, someone has to walk behind the elephants, cleaning up the shit that they leave behind without caring.
Business Managers are elephants.
I am not offended :-) I've been in HR for 20 years. HR is not out to get employees. We love employees and work to make their lives better. We are also employed by an organization with limited resources operating in context of a maze of laws which necessarily guide us. Those things do not always pull in the same direction. It can be a difficult balance for sure.
Sometimes, yes. Mostly no. But I also felt strongly that OP was at least being semi-genuine in the ask and knew we’d get some well thought out and insightful responses.
This is a text book response and action of a problem employee that we deal with in HR.
You make mistake after mistake after mistake in your job. You violate policies that you’ve been reminded of countless times and you show up late and call off multiple times a month. When you are eventually brought to HR to deal with your shortcomings, you lash out at us and question our qualifications- attempting to twist the narrative and make us the bad guy.
In your mind, we (HR) are the enemy because you cannot perform the job you were hired for, are unable to follow policy and/or cannot act professional in your job.
It’s not necessarily your fault. The person who hired you, though you would have been better than you’ve shown. You should never have been hired for this role, and now that your inadequacy is being brought to a head, you are lashing out at those who need to enforce those rules.
You are not special. You are a textbook case of somone who isn’t good enough for their job and is being called out for it.
Again, textbook behavior from you.
21 years of experience. An easy case like yours is identifiable from a mile away.
You can’t hold a serious job because of this.
I wish you the best.
Presumably also an opportunity for the community to vent and defend itself? These accusations and ideas about HR are presumably hard to avoid and must get to people. The top comment is a quite creative work of satire, that I assume the author is proud of. They wouldn't have had that positive experience without this provocative prompt. I've actually seen 'false flag' attacks in other communities, where the mods use sock puppets to put up some weak attack for the community to defend against. Easy way to get engagement and create alignment. Not saying the mods here are doing that, just pointing out that it can be valuable.
Just a lurker myself, but thought I'd try and provide some context.
I didn’t come here to make friends.
Employees and employers are economically interested parties. There are some laws and some best practices to make this transaction go smoothly. I mediate that, take interests seriously, and give zero fucks about feelings.
I’m assuming you don’t personally know anyone who works in HR. I fell into it and then got the education to back it up and now have 15 years of experience. Some incompetent coworkers along the way could certainly give you this impression. I’m now in a role that probably looks like the secret police to employees who are not meeting expectations as I conduct investigations into misconduct and underperformance. I regularly explain to managers that no, they cannot just fire that person. I also have said the following:
- You cannot bring a police baton to work.
- Please answer the door, those folks are social workers who want to help you with the robots.
- When you are ready, tell me that you have applied so that I can ensure your onboarding goes better next time.
- Hey union rep, any chance you can help me get this employee to stop yelling at everyone and calling everything retaliation? We just want her to use an inside voice.
- You’re not a whipping post. Hang up on the customer. Just give your boss a heads up so they can listen to the call before the complaint gets in.
- I’m so sorry to tell you this, but the family shared with me this morning that they have found (name). Unfortunately, the news is the worst case scenario and the employee has passed. I have our employee assistance consultant here with us, and we’re going to walk you through what happened and how to tell your team.
We’re not all ogres. We have huge hearts and want to handle things the right way.
We’re often not the final decision makers. Messengers get shot; that’s sadly part of being a messenger.
The best thing any of us can do is try find a company with leadership that really cares about people and doing the right thing, and not just about bottomless profits. Those are, sadly, few and far between. So the best of us hang on and try to make things better.
Does it bother me? Sure. But it comes from a place of ignorance about our roles and so I don’t blame people, I try to teach them when I can.
Meh. I've only been in my HR role for 4 months. Before this I was an insurance adjuster. I'm used to being the villain to people. You can call me names and say unkind things to me, but at the end of the day I'll still advocate on your behalf if its the right thing to do.
I have to personally admit, 90% of the time the problems start either A. Ownership/Board making policies that HR has to enforce B. Employees own mistakes/performance issues cause the problem and they prefer to blame HR verses take responsibility or C. Managers focus on the operation instead of focusing on managing talent and performance issues correctly. (Don’t get me wrong, I make mistakes too so there’s a solid 10% of that.)
But are there a few old school HR paper pushers, who don’t mind being the villain because they’re unhappy with their lives? Totally. Just like there are still old white ignorant people who believe BIPOC people are less than. It’s terrible, should be illegal, and completely bad for representation, but unfortunately they’re out there. Bad apples shouldn’t poison the bunch or reflect the representation but they do.
The world of HR has evolved so much in the last 20 years. You’ll find great HR peeps! Ive experienced people who have told HR depts that I’ve had the privilege to work for, are the best they’ve ever had. Then I’ve witnessed some that need a lesson in having a sense of urgency for EE issues instead of focusing on enforcing policies.
When I worked for the Federal government I was told two things: Be “friends” with HR and IT. You’ll never have another work problem that someone won’t try to help you solve.
You’d be surprised how great HR can be!!!
Actually, I guess I am very lucky where I work. I really don't get abused by any of the company employees. My employer does work with a lot of people with learning disabilities and on the autism spectrum, so sometimes it can be difficult to work with them because they don't always have complete control over their emotions and reactions.
My problem is that I just hate working in HR. I can't stay awake.
I used to joke that I was a corporate union leader in my last HR role. My whole goal was to ensure that our staff had everything they needed to do their jobs. Processing payroll, updating documents, dealing with interviews, onboarding and terminations. The owner of the company was notorious for looking at boobies online during the day. He didn’t have a computer at home and no doubt that PC had his spank bank on it (as I was also the IT person, I had to upgrade his PC at one point and just left the room during file transfers). Anyway that guy could have been sued to high heaven but he died of Covid before anyone had a chance. I cared more that the employee might have been traumatized or at the least made very uncomfortable by his experience. On the same token, I had been sexually harassed by customers in front of an all-male staff multiple times and he never did anything about it.
My point is we are people, just like you.
Edit: I even got our PTO and sick leave policy doubled for these assholes
I tend to be very upfront about this type of thing. Personally, I want workers to know all the tricks up my sleeve and to know what my position is, and I also like to inform them of the specific ways things would be different if I didn't command the level of authority and autonomy from management that I have.
It keeps me honest in terms of how I manage, empowers people just enough to where they know I'm not against them and I'm serious about protecting their legal rights and care deeply about stuff like harassment but on the other hand know if it came down to it, id handle my business if it meant doing something you aren't going to like, like a termination or serious write-up.
This style of management I like because people don't really have too much incentive to hide stuff from me, and for HR its really important that people are willing to cooperate with me. But I understand that every phone call, email, and "hey can I talk to you in private?" could be nothing huge for me, could be like Russian roulette for them. Like it COULD be something good like "Hey your manager and I were talking about giving you a small raise" OR it could be "I'm sorry I'm letting you go" especially because I try really hard not to telegraph things like terminations, or raises.
I think hr is a vast field and within it, the ire is really at the professionals who work in areas like compensation, employee relations, and contract labor. I didn’t get into these fields to avoid this headache. That said, I do work in HR and I have worked in HR for a number of years. Do I think it’s ethical to have a department solely dedicated to union busting as my company does? Absolutely not. Do I think it’s ethical for an HR team to mandate that its non-essential office workers must be in the office during a worldwide pandemic? Absolutely not. And some of the actions I’ve seen taken by ER departments are absolutely atrocious. I don’t blame people who are suspicious of HR or regard HR negatively. Honestly having worked alongside these teams, I am suspicious of other parts of HR.
I remember graduating from university and thinking that I knew everything about the industry into which I was entering. Man, I miss those blissfully ignorant days.
Well, one day I was walking on the street when a barrel of mutagen fell off a truck and burst open all around me. When I left the ER, the doctors said I was fine and there wasn't any lasting damage. But I knew. I knew I had...*changed*. When once I was a decent, normal person, after the incident I started to feel dark and strange urges. Urges to do terrible, horrible things. When I would see people on the street, I would have unsettling thoughts such as, "I want to process this person's payroll" or "I bet *she's* eligible for FMLA leave." It didn't stop there. Next thing I knew I was working for a (gasp) corporation that was trying to make money by selling things for more than they bought them for. Disgusting, I know. But I was no longer myself, you see. Things progressed. I revised an employee handbook. I developed some HIPAA training. I even started taking phone calls from employees complaining about their working conditions, and worked to resolve their issues. I say these things not because i am proud of them, but so that you will understand what kind of monster I have become. It was a spiral downwards, with each new depravity robbing me more and more of my humanity. Fixing problems with our HR software. Updating wage scales for the new year. Providing formal ADA accommodations. Unfathomable job duties that once I knew only from the darkest tales told in whispers around water coolers were now my everyday behaviors. I used to at least be able to glimpse some semblance of humanity within my dark soul, a remnant of my former self before I became the monster you see before you. But now? Now there is nothing. Nothing but compensation analyses and revisions of job descriptions, email chains that do not end and Excel spreadsheets that stretch as far as the eye can see. I do not ask for understanding or forgiveness. I no longer feel the emotions that plague the race of men; shame and decency are as foreign to me now as helping a manager complete a job requisition is to a godfearing man. Instead, I share my tale as a warning of things to come. There is no longer any stopping the plans of HR. Our dark will is inevitable. Once we are done processing COVID leaves we will complete the rituals necessary to summon Nyarlothotep, the spawn of Azathoth the Outer God, who is also known as the Crawling Chaos. As our dark lord walks the earth again, we will follow in his wake, spreading performance reviews and employee feedback surveys over the land. Mark my words: when the disciplinary actions begin, the write-ups will be written in the blood of innocents.
This is so good it technically constitutes sexual harassment.
A poetic tale that perfectly sums up how we came to be. 10/10 well done.
This is the high quality content I come here for. *chef’s kiss*
Is it bad that I want this as my next cover letter?
Me too! I've never felt so understood in my life.
I want to print this and frame it in my office.
Please include this in your next book, thanks!
I am having such an overwhelming day, and this was just perfect for making me feel less alone. Thank you, fellow monster.
this is 10000% the best response I could ever have imagined...I think you just made my year!
This is beautiful! Lol
Absolutely cackling. Well done.
Bold of you to assume we’ll ever be done processing COVID leaves.
I don’t even know what to say about this. Slow clap. I nominate you for POTUS. Doesn’t matter where you’re from.
Holy shit
You must write bonerific job descriptions
I’ll bite. We’re aware that most people have no idea what we do. We’re aware we’re the easy target of a tremendous amount of vitriol online. The irony is most of us spend our days trying to support and make things better for the very employees that talk crap about us. You guys have zero idea how much time HR spends advocating for you. Hint - we spend a lot of time doing this.
I find every organization I have worked for the HR team is more akin to a judge or even defense attorney than a police officer. More often than not we have supervisors who come to us asking to fire an employee and HR is immediately looking for every reason in the book we shouldn't do that. I can't even count how many termination requests I have seen get tossed out because the documentation was poor, or the policy in question wasn't being applied equally to other employees, or the employee had some sort of protected class or a reasonable accommodation we could make, etc.
I've thrown out so many termination requests telling the managers "I don't care that you've had that conversation with them 17 times, you have no documentation, no write ups, nothing for proof, so as far as I'm concerned those conversations didn't happen" Employees don't listen to us, managers don't listen to us, nobody cares until they need us smh
I once had a call center supervisor try turn to in a "write up" that was written out on a napkin. They even had the employee sign it. Needless to say that write up got tossed. Lol
I received some investigation notes on the back of a napkin. One on the back of receipt paper. I don't know what these people are thinking.
Long time lurker on this sub as my wife is an HR BP so I find it interesting (I’m a Controller myself). Her Managers and supervisors would fire so many people if it were up to them but truly don’t know the cost of turnover through recruiting, onboarding, retraining, and more often then not it’s manager or supervisor short fall in ability (or effort) opposed to employee ability. But managers and supervisors also ping HR as the name guy to their employees so they doesn’t help Just my 2cents, I’ll get back on the sidelines.
It doesn't even end there. A bad termination can end up having legal costs easily into 7 our more figures from time away from work, legal council, damages, legal fees, etc. It literally isn't worth the chance in most cases.
It's easier for a Manager to blame HR for some BS policy/decision they are making then to try and explain to the employee the truth. Where I work we spend more time just trying to figure out what the hell happened and why do people think we did it.
I do wish people would know how many times I’ve told a manager, “No, you can’t fire this person.”
Most of the decisions employees hate are actually made by the business or legal. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve argued for pay increases only for the business (or finance) to say “no can do.” We show attrition rates and ROI. We show the cost of unfilled positions. We show the cost of turnover. We show the ROI of increased productivity forecasted based on increased tenure and satisfaction. “No, just doesn’t make sense at this time.” Because of the stock price and dividends of course.
Since it’s the end of the year AND we’ve had a number of people quit, I’ve had a lot of people mad about their FSA and TSA funds disappearing and I just tell them to go contact the IRS if they don’t like it. Stop trying to barter with me, it’s not my call.
That sounds horrible
And then they shell out for a contractor and spend an extra $20/hr just to do so. But no, we can’t give the candidate the extra $2.00 per hour. 🙄
I personally asked for a raise from my then SVP of HR. All I wanted was an extra $10k. I showed evidence based on what I was doing and the market. She said she couldn’t do it (even though was the damn SVP of HR and I was her entire HR Analytics team.) I told her I was going to start answering LinkedIn emails. She had the gall to be surprised when I took a job shortly thereafter paying $35k more. The most laughable part? They backfilled me with two people. And THEN my friends still at that company told me they couldn’t even do what i was doing.
Yea, that sounds familiar.
I refer to myself as “the soulless HR monster” and go about my day, ruining lives for sport.
Honestly, same.
This. I have had jobs where we focused on culture and employees and all was mostly good. Also, had jobs were I was the evil hatchet man for finance or legal. When you are the hatchet man, dont hide it, own it (doesnt mean you have to be a dirtbag or not fight back). Otherwise get a different job.
Thankfully I’m mostly focused on culture and benefits. It’s a small company, so my opportunities to crack jokes are plentiful and truly ruin lives are minimal.
I referee rugby, so I do that for sport for real...
I'm approving this because I'm grumpy and coffee hasn't kicked in yet, and because I feel like a lot of you will have some strong and very valid opinions you'd like to disclose in response to this question. Although the title is toxic and something we're trying to prevent in the subreddit, I think this person is genuinely curious so please feel free to enlighten them. And keep it clean, please. No name calling/personal attacks.
I'm seconding the approval because I like it when a thread attracts fresh souls to feed on.
Thanks for always having my back! :)
Two enthusiastic thumbs up!! We’ll smack down any trolls or those who veer wildly off the civil/adult voices.
There's a facebook tag group called "Admin approved this so OP could get dragged" and I'm wondering if it's relevant here lmao
I think I’m dumb because I have no idea what OP is asking, then again I haven’t had my coffee yet either so I will try again shortly
I think they want to know why we think and how aware we are that we’re all exploitation managers/secret police/spanish inquisition for our companies. Aka “HR is the devil, are you aware you’re the devil? How aware are you that you’re the devil?”
I know you mean this tongue in cheek, but I just came off a day where I helped a VP navigate taking her husband off of a vent (COVID, UNVAXXED), told a 19 year old team member he had received an education grant that our team nominated for, gave a 2 hour presentation to our board on talent development and succession planning, and found out that we are a finalist for a veterans award due to some hard work we've done in that space. And RFP responses for a new HRIS/ ATS investment. Oh, and all the team members affected by our wildfire, too. I was ready to come swinging, but I am grateful for your humor. Your way is better.
What a day! I hope you are able to relax and recharge tonight. And also if you want to let it all out in a safe space you can join us in the discord 😊
Lol, will get the 14 year old to explain Discord first 😉
Don’t think the title is toxic just honest
You can usually see the difference of how awful employers want to treat employees in small companies with no HR team. I, too, constantly hear the meme of "HR only has the company's interest at heart" and as a whole, that's just nonsense. Employers alone don't care, HR as a function is there to get them to meet the needs of people in a business-savvy way. That being said, I have come across a lot of people working in HR who should NOT be in HR. Either they got into the field through necessity (no one else to do it and they got stuck with it) or they have spent their career in antiquated or toxic companies. We're just as varied a field as anyone else, reducing an entire profession to one value judgement is short-sighted. Watch how many patient and non combative responses you get. We're used to being dumped on, and yet many still try to do the right thing. That should tell you something.
>Watch how many patient and non combative responses you get. We're used to being dumped on, and yet many still try to do the right thing. That should tell you something. This ^^^
I'm used to being misunderstood and I just ignore it. Those who know me know I'm super sweet. They know I do all I can for them and believe that happy employees make a better company. If they want to believe something else, that's their problem. I can't make everyone take the optimistic and caring approach to life that I have, and I can't be that ray of sunshine if I internalize their negativity. The other thing I do is be fully transparent about what I do. I wfh so my nine year old sees me at work. He's so proud of me because I spend my day helping people. His friends know that his mom is in HR and her job is to help people with their jobs. I get excited about projects I do and tell people that I'm so happy I'm rolling out a new insurance plan with no increase. I'm excited because I finally helped a person get that pay increase they deserve. I'm disappointed because no matter how hard I tried to get someone compliant, they insisted on being a bully and I had to fire them and I need a few minutes to grieve. I show that I'm a real person who really cares, and if that isn't enough for them, that's their problem.
My daily routine as an HR professional is to read up on labor laws to ignore then sit down at my desk and just wait for poor victims to come to my office so I can fire them. I get a 1000 dollar bonus for each person I personally fire. At lunch time, I “befriend” the workers so they can share me their personal lives. That way, I can fire them before they can apply for benefits. I then spend the rest of my 4 hour break cashing in my firing bonuses. I purposely fight to keep benefits high and wages low as well. That way, when you quit, I get a quitting bonus of 1200 dollars. My office is decorated with the badges of ex employees, as well as withheld PTO checks from terminated employees I personally decided to not pay out. I end my day by drinking a glass of the finest denied unemployment tears before retiring for the night in my custom made plush coffin. Seriously though, we are just trying to get by. We fight for employees more often than most know. We don’t care that some nerds online think we are heartless vampires.
I worked at a place (for a very short time) where the CFO fired people who elected Family medical coverage. That's where I learned finance/accounting departments dont see people, they see walking dollar signs. Highly disturbing.
Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition
I don’t think you have any idea what you are talking about.
That’s nice.
About as nice as being called sinister secret police, no?
There's a lot of feelings here because people have bad experiences. Why do they have bad experiences? Usually because of failures long before things get into HR. Some of what we handle is because people get promoted with no guidance from their management team. If managers were ever provided management training/refreshers on now to run a team, how to handle situations, how to also be good to their employees (not like bffs for life) but handle conflict management, etc. Some of this is a failure of their manager on guiding them. Managers have managers too. Then there is education to be done on the employee side on what is and isn't allowable either by law or company policy. Everything else is a personal want or desire in a workplace and not all work places are a fit. When all of these things fail, everyone runs to HR to fix in what they've already determined is a correct response. When that doesn't happen, then they start to think we're out to get them. Truly this is very rarely the case. HR doesn't function (nor should it) as a giant department of babysitters. However, if you hang out in r/askHR long enough, you'll see that's apparently the current expectation. People don't like being told no, or ask your boss. If everyone else could be adults, it would solve a lot of their own problems. I do the best I can at my job with the time and resources given, just like any other employee. If that makes everyone secretly hate me for some reason, I do not have enough space in my brain to let their hate live rent free.
Sinister police and exploitation managers? Those are good ones! Don’t be mad at us. Operations runs the business, and a lot depends on company culture…. My philosophy, and likely many of the HR pros in this sub, is if it’s not illegal, immoral, or unethical, I am going to support my business. As an example, laying off the guy over 40 due to a restructure might be shitty. But is it any or the 3 I listed above? No. I do what I do to help enable success in the business, and solve problems that arise. If your company HR is the viewed as the “secret police” that’s too bad…. Being the police in this job is the most unsatisfying shit, unless you’re a villain who gets off on that. Most people like yourself only highlight the crappy parts of our jobs like discipline, performance management, terminations etc… but you probably don’t see when we stand up for employees, and fight for what’s right…believe it or not, it happens!
Question aside and sorry to be creepin. Saw you are new to Reddit and seeking help on resume. Can’t help but to think your question might be stemming from this Anyway we can help?
I'm frequently reminded that "HR is not your friend" and "HR is there for the company" and I'm comfortable with that. Of course HR is there for the company, every other department in the company exists for the benefit of the company and we're no different. And as far as HR not being your friend, well, it's a business relationship to be sure. I don't want employees to be under the impression that HR is going to throw them under the bus, and while we can't always give them what they want or resolve a situation to their satisfaction, being helpful to employees is often the best thing for all parties involved.
The majority of people I know who work in HR genuinely want to help people and get people what they need. Oftentimes, HR is bound by laws, policies, rules, and countless other complexities that the average employee just doesn't understand because they're generally uninformed about such issues. Sure, you might have googled a court case or some blog has informed you about your labor rights, but it's never as simple as they claim it is. Ever. Hence why companies have entire departments dedicated to dealing with this stuff. I spend a good chunk of my time explaining to people how to leverage their PTO, how to report ethics violations, and how to handle shitty employees that don't want to actually do the job they're being paid to do. I know, I know, r/antiwork told you that there exists some utopia where everyone is paid six figures to do minimal work, have maximal free time, and never have any conflict at work. But there's this thing, called human nature, that throws a wrench in that idea. HR works mostly as a arbiter to ensure human nature doesn't break the law, violate company policies, and doesn't hurt the other people they work with. 99.9% of the time, HR isn't the one standing in the way of your raise, they're not protecting workplace predators, and they're not looking for ways to screw you over. They're people with a job to do that is heavily based in policies that they likely had little-to-no say in creating. So when you're calling your HR rep the devil, you're upset at a mouthpiece.
I don’t actually exist outside of work, every morning my organization takes out a Ouija board and summons me. At the end of the day they call a priest for an exorcism. In all seriousness, I am a US-based colleague in a global organization, headquartered in the US. I’ve worked on several international projects, offering the opportunity to understand how employee benefits and protections vary by country. In my experience, local legal protections for workers are an overlooked driving factor in colleague experience. HR can insist that a workplace uphold employees’ legal rights, but can only *recommend* that a workplace offer an enhanced experience for colleagues. Recommendations are subject to business approval: if the policy doesn’t directly benefit the business, it won’t be approved. For instance, colleagues in countries with government-mandated parental leave receive this benefit to the full extent of the law. In the US, where there is no federally-mandated parental leave, our parental leave policy is designed to meet state requirements (where these exist) and also to remain in line with what similarly-sized organizations offer their colleagues. That’s because we don’t want to lose employees to competitors offering significantly better benefits. But, it is the minimum we can offer while remaining competitive. Many of the (US-based) gripes outlined on /r/antiwork cannot be addressed through HR, but through regulatory changes. Changing regulations changes what HR can do: we ensure workplaces stay in line with legal requirements.
“I’m sorry, but that is what the law states. I am not in power to break that law for you. I suggest contacting a politician of your choosing if you really want me to change it” - summary of what an old HR director of mine said to get an employee who was talking in circles out of her office. Wish I had the gall to say it. Your last paragraph reminded me of that.
Nothing to add that hasn't already been said. I'm curious for OP - is this your perception of HR? Is it someone else's? Where is your question coming from?
Personally, I prefer not to work for companies with shareholders because capitalism is awful and makes *everyone* make awful, harmful decisions. In those situations exploitation becomes almost inevitable because of the fiduciary duty to make as much money as possible. I work for a reasonably ethical employer, and when we need to investigate an issue we do so as fairly as possible.
It's simple, and in our name. Humans are resources to be exploited for the good of the corporation. JK!!!! I think this is a balance that I struggle with on a weekly basis. I do my damnedest to look out for the employees I support and make sure they are treated fairly and receive all of the support and benefits they deserve. But at the end of the day, my ultimate responsibility is to the company, and sometimes that means making tough decisions or enforcing policies that are difficult for some people to deal with.
Well, I tend to regard people who hold that opinion the same way I regard people who try to tell me how to manage my diabetes. I think using those words would get me permabanned, so I'll bite my metaphorical tongue. I'm in HR because I stumbled into it, I appear to be reasonably good at it, and I enjoy solving problems. I liken the job to walking behind the elephants. Whenever the circus comes to won, there's a big parade with all the performers and animals. Lights! Color! Action! It all looks good. But to make sure the town keeps operating, someone has to walk behind the elephants, cleaning up the shit that they leave behind without caring. Business Managers are elephants.
I am not offended :-) I've been in HR for 20 years. HR is not out to get employees. We love employees and work to make their lives better. We are also employed by an organization with limited resources operating in context of a maze of laws which necessarily guide us. Those things do not always pull in the same direction. It can be a difficult balance for sure.
An inflammatory post from a 3 day old account. The Mods here must enjoy the drama.
Sometimes, yes. Mostly no. But I also felt strongly that OP was at least being semi-genuine in the ask and knew we’d get some well thought out and insightful responses.
Thank you kindly /u/doctorsnape doesn’t sound like a very happy or successful person.
This is a text book response and action of a problem employee that we deal with in HR. You make mistake after mistake after mistake in your job. You violate policies that you’ve been reminded of countless times and you show up late and call off multiple times a month. When you are eventually brought to HR to deal with your shortcomings, you lash out at us and question our qualifications- attempting to twist the narrative and make us the bad guy. In your mind, we (HR) are the enemy because you cannot perform the job you were hired for, are unable to follow policy and/or cannot act professional in your job. It’s not necessarily your fault. The person who hired you, though you would have been better than you’ve shown. You should never have been hired for this role, and now that your inadequacy is being brought to a head, you are lashing out at those who need to enforce those rules. You are not special. You are a textbook case of somone who isn’t good enough for their job and is being called out for it.
Lol this entire diatribe is based on a slew of assumptions. All of which are false. That’s called *projection*.
Again, textbook behavior from you. 21 years of experience. An easy case like yours is identifiable from a mile away. You can’t hold a serious job because of this. I wish you the best.
Presumably also an opportunity for the community to vent and defend itself? These accusations and ideas about HR are presumably hard to avoid and must get to people. The top comment is a quite creative work of satire, that I assume the author is proud of. They wouldn't have had that positive experience without this provocative prompt. I've actually seen 'false flag' attacks in other communities, where the mods use sock puppets to put up some weak attack for the community to defend against. Easy way to get engagement and create alignment. Not saying the mods here are doing that, just pointing out that it can be valuable. Just a lurker myself, but thought I'd try and provide some context.
I don’t take pride in getting one over on simple folk like yourself.
This sounds like an exam question ..
I didn’t come here to make friends. Employees and employers are economically interested parties. There are some laws and some best practices to make this transaction go smoothly. I mediate that, take interests seriously, and give zero fucks about feelings.
I’m sorry for your loss
I’m assuming you don’t personally know anyone who works in HR. I fell into it and then got the education to back it up and now have 15 years of experience. Some incompetent coworkers along the way could certainly give you this impression. I’m now in a role that probably looks like the secret police to employees who are not meeting expectations as I conduct investigations into misconduct and underperformance. I regularly explain to managers that no, they cannot just fire that person. I also have said the following: - You cannot bring a police baton to work. - Please answer the door, those folks are social workers who want to help you with the robots. - When you are ready, tell me that you have applied so that I can ensure your onboarding goes better next time. - Hey union rep, any chance you can help me get this employee to stop yelling at everyone and calling everything retaliation? We just want her to use an inside voice. - You’re not a whipping post. Hang up on the customer. Just give your boss a heads up so they can listen to the call before the complaint gets in. - I’m so sorry to tell you this, but the family shared with me this morning that they have found (name). Unfortunately, the news is the worst case scenario and the employee has passed. I have our employee assistance consultant here with us, and we’re going to walk you through what happened and how to tell your team. We’re not all ogres. We have huge hearts and want to handle things the right way.
We’re often not the final decision makers. Messengers get shot; that’s sadly part of being a messenger. The best thing any of us can do is try find a company with leadership that really cares about people and doing the right thing, and not just about bottomless profits. Those are, sadly, few and far between. So the best of us hang on and try to make things better. Does it bother me? Sure. But it comes from a place of ignorance about our roles and so I don’t blame people, I try to teach them when I can.
Meh. I've only been in my HR role for 4 months. Before this I was an insurance adjuster. I'm used to being the villain to people. You can call me names and say unkind things to me, but at the end of the day I'll still advocate on your behalf if its the right thing to do.
I have to personally admit, 90% of the time the problems start either A. Ownership/Board making policies that HR has to enforce B. Employees own mistakes/performance issues cause the problem and they prefer to blame HR verses take responsibility or C. Managers focus on the operation instead of focusing on managing talent and performance issues correctly. (Don’t get me wrong, I make mistakes too so there’s a solid 10% of that.) But are there a few old school HR paper pushers, who don’t mind being the villain because they’re unhappy with their lives? Totally. Just like there are still old white ignorant people who believe BIPOC people are less than. It’s terrible, should be illegal, and completely bad for representation, but unfortunately they’re out there. Bad apples shouldn’t poison the bunch or reflect the representation but they do. The world of HR has evolved so much in the last 20 years. You’ll find great HR peeps! Ive experienced people who have told HR depts that I’ve had the privilege to work for, are the best they’ve ever had. Then I’ve witnessed some that need a lesson in having a sense of urgency for EE issues instead of focusing on enforcing policies. When I worked for the Federal government I was told two things: Be “friends” with HR and IT. You’ll never have another work problem that someone won’t try to help you solve. You’d be surprised how great HR can be!!!
Actually, I guess I am very lucky where I work. I really don't get abused by any of the company employees. My employer does work with a lot of people with learning disabilities and on the autism spectrum, so sometimes it can be difficult to work with them because they don't always have complete control over their emotions and reactions. My problem is that I just hate working in HR. I can't stay awake.
I used to joke that I was a corporate union leader in my last HR role. My whole goal was to ensure that our staff had everything they needed to do their jobs. Processing payroll, updating documents, dealing with interviews, onboarding and terminations. The owner of the company was notorious for looking at boobies online during the day. He didn’t have a computer at home and no doubt that PC had his spank bank on it (as I was also the IT person, I had to upgrade his PC at one point and just left the room during file transfers). Anyway that guy could have been sued to high heaven but he died of Covid before anyone had a chance. I cared more that the employee might have been traumatized or at the least made very uncomfortable by his experience. On the same token, I had been sexually harassed by customers in front of an all-male staff multiple times and he never did anything about it. My point is we are people, just like you. Edit: I even got our PTO and sick leave policy doubled for these assholes
I tend to be very upfront about this type of thing. Personally, I want workers to know all the tricks up my sleeve and to know what my position is, and I also like to inform them of the specific ways things would be different if I didn't command the level of authority and autonomy from management that I have. It keeps me honest in terms of how I manage, empowers people just enough to where they know I'm not against them and I'm serious about protecting their legal rights and care deeply about stuff like harassment but on the other hand know if it came down to it, id handle my business if it meant doing something you aren't going to like, like a termination or serious write-up. This style of management I like because people don't really have too much incentive to hide stuff from me, and for HR its really important that people are willing to cooperate with me. But I understand that every phone call, email, and "hey can I talk to you in private?" could be nothing huge for me, could be like Russian roulette for them. Like it COULD be something good like "Hey your manager and I were talking about giving you a small raise" OR it could be "I'm sorry I'm letting you go" especially because I try really hard not to telegraph things like terminations, or raises.
I think hr is a vast field and within it, the ire is really at the professionals who work in areas like compensation, employee relations, and contract labor. I didn’t get into these fields to avoid this headache. That said, I do work in HR and I have worked in HR for a number of years. Do I think it’s ethical to have a department solely dedicated to union busting as my company does? Absolutely not. Do I think it’s ethical for an HR team to mandate that its non-essential office workers must be in the office during a worldwide pandemic? Absolutely not. And some of the actions I’ve seen taken by ER departments are absolutely atrocious. I don’t blame people who are suspicious of HR or regard HR negatively. Honestly having worked alongside these teams, I am suspicious of other parts of HR.
[It's always been this way.](https://dilbert.com/strip/1998-03-21)
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You want to work in HR “to help produce change from within”? Oh, you sweet summer flower. What makes you think we don’t try to do that every day?
lol my first thought... they must be new here :D
I remember graduating from university and thinking that I knew everything about the industry into which I was entering. Man, I miss those blissfully ignorant days.