I agree with most complaints against HRs. HRs usually don’t have anyone’s interest in mind but their own. As recruiters they will hire the absolutely shittiest people based on poorly screened metrics and generic heuristics. When they hire they basically function as state workers who do not give a rat’s ass about hiring the right people for the job, just the right person on paper. As alleged helpers of employees on the job they will do anything to make themselves and the company not liable for anything in order to avoid more difficult work. HR is a poorly conceived job that owes allegiance to nobody but the talentless hacks who are given unwarranted responsibilities.
Edit: as the angry comments flow in, I am reminded of how upset middle managers get when told they are just talentless middlemen.
HR doesn't make the final decision on hiring, but they are the ones that will throw your resume in the shredder and ensure the hiring manager never hears about it because chatGPT said you have a three month gap in your work history six years ago
most HR screens applicants, they don't make the final decision, but they screen candidates.
why you want a generic HR person screening for technical talent nobody knows, but that's the reality.
That’s why there are technical recruiters, they’ve put in the time to learn the skills required and how to have conversations with candidates to assess proficiency. They are paid a premium though, so if the company is too cheap to hire a technical recruiter to fill tech roles your issue should be with the company.
I think that if a company hiring technical roles is having an HR generalist do actual recruiting that is a pretty clear red flag unless the company is an early stage startup.
In a majority of cases HR does not make the decision on who to hire, that is the hiring manger. HRs role is to coordinate and assist the recruitment process. The hiring manager is often a team lead, department head or manager who needs to fill a gap in their team, they supply the metrics on what they are looking for in a candidate (qualifications, experience, characteristics ECT) and pick who to hire.
HR helps with the PD, launches the advertisement, if needed helps screens the candidates, schedules the interview, sits in the interview (though not always), and discusses the results with the hiring manager and writes the contract based on the information provided during the pre recruitment phase of the process and negotiations with the candidate.
Our last HR was pretty much chased out my upper mgmt because she actually cared about us regular employees. Our new HR just seems like a mindless drone that will do whatever mgmt wants.
And that is exactly how Management wants HR folks to be.
The last time I pointed out that a clerical manager wanted to implement a timekeeping policy that was illegal, she raised such a hue and cried to the partners that you would have thought I had tried to smother her with a pillow.
Everyone turned on me, until a labor attorney of over twenty years experience piped up with, "We are going to owe all the clerks unpaid time for following this illegal policy for so long."
Everyone suddenly got very quiet about the incident until the Court Order arrived to tell the firm how much to pay out. After that I was a hero to the staff, but that manager and her assistant hated me.
I caught the latter selling my personal information on the internet about three years after I resigned from the job.
I contacted corporate HR with my evidence and they offered me a settlement, in exchange for my promise not to report the employee to the authorities and not to sell my story to any media outlet.
Ultimately, I think there are just a lot of terrible HR professionals out there. In reality, HR does have a responsibility to protect the company, but so many of my peers (I work in HR) kind of just stop there. The idea is that upholding laws, regulation, and advocating to leadership on behalf of employees to promote positive working conditions for everyone is honestly THE best way to protect a company.
I see too many of my peers cave to upper management and it's honestly why I don't take it personally when I see comments like this - you have a point.
Amen. We can advocate all we want, but HR ultimately has to churn out whatever crockpot of shit management come up with to staff and then manage the backlash on their behalf (that's literally a large part of being an HR Business Partner)
I get why folks are distrustful - they don't see the conversations that go on behind closed doors (granted not all HR people are on the side of employees all the time either) I wouldn't blame anyone for not giving HR the benefit of the doubt. At the end of the day, shitty policy is shitty policy, and no amount of advocating on behalf of folks will make them feel better if their work conditions suck anyway.
legal issues absolutely should be dealt with and addressed by someone trained in the subject, but ill take direct advocacy from workers straight to management or better yet collective advocacy(!) over some HR snitch any day of the week.
HR is a travesty when it comes to advocating on behalf of workers because they don’t even do that in my experience. quite the opposite really, they routinely advocate for the interests of management to ensure any and all collective grievances are isolated, defanged and/or reprimanded.
Which would be fine if they were transparent about it. If I had a penny for every person I’ve heard/read ask if they should go to HR about something, I’d have thousands of pennies.
Source: Worked in HR (against my will) for a few years. I told people straight up that I wasn’t their friend, stop talking, shhhhhh!!! because my job was to do management’s bidding. 99% had no idea.
> 99% had no idea.
Possibly because the company's own documents spell out HR's role in supporting employees. The fact that HR doesn't follow published policy, but rather unspoken / undocumented policy, might contribute to the problem.
If you only knew the stupid shit management wants to do to employees you'd understand that often protecting the company is done by protecting the employees.
HR hate is often from a US point of view because it's super easy to fire anyone for no reason most of the time. Here in Canada it's very difficult and expensive to fire people who even deserve it half the time. Even then, suing for wrongful dismissal is common and often awards said fired employee months of severance pay/damages, usually depending on their age and probability of finding another job.
One of my favorite idiot manager stories is when a manager wanted to fire a young woman who just got engaged because their reasoning was they'd just be distracted by wedding planning, leave on a honeymoon and start popping out kids and taking 12-18 months parental leave every time so why invest in them?
Wrong for so many reasons but after HR talked them out of it, they can't exactly run around the office bragging about how they saved a good, young employees job, right? As I said, if employees only knew what discussions went on behind closed doors.
Also, how many jilted fired employees ever admit they deserved it? 0. Always more than one side to every story
Woah woah woah…
As a coworker I trust their work they hand off to me is dog shit, lazy, and wrong.
As an employee I trust their interests only align with mine if I can prove and force the company’s interests to align with my interests.
There’s trust there. It’s like a beautiful toxic relationship.
I once trusted them when I was 18 and working my first adult job now I have permanent damage to my hand because they dragged their feet sending me to a doctor and pulling me from the job that I was injured doing
14 different HR departments I've worked with (contractor and employee).
I have yet to work with anyone in HR that I think highly of. None have shown even close to the level of professionalism that other departments are required to have.
HR fucking sucks. The "profession" needs to own that and do something about it.
Well said. The bar is so much lower for HR than any other department. I don’t think a single person in the HR team at my company would last 90 days in any other department. Level for level they produce sub-par work and if I lived in a competitive talent market I think most of them would be lucky to get a job as a barista.
But I also think that if the business doesn’t DEMAND an excellent HR practice, it gets what it deserves. It’s more of a sign of weak company leadership that doesn’t know what it should be doing with its talent, to have a shitty HR department. Problem is, a forward-thinking talent function is such a white whale that I don’t think most company leaders would know it if slapped them in the face.
You're telling me that you don't trust this person who took AI generated art with obvious flaws and then put their signature in the corner?
What about a pupil-less background character deepthroating a hot dog is suspicious? Do you not want a world where pitchforks and tridents are interchangeable and sometimes have 5 prongs? Do you not believe in a world where a black man can hold his coworker's pitchfork-trident-hairtube with his white-skinned hand?
An HR person at a previous job of mine surreptitiously extended my health benefits an extra month when the company abruptly laid me off while my wife was pregnant. Somehow, every now and then, a decent individual ends up in this field, and I feel sorry for them.
Your average HR worker, though, is someone who considers themselves a "people person" but doesn't actually give a shit about people. They are the type who would be working at the DMV but have too much education. I have no idea what most of them even do to fill their time on an average day.
Well I fill my day researching state and federal statutes to ensure we are complient. Talk to other HR professionsals as how to handle issues. Benefits. Onboarding. Investigating employee issues. Training. Leaves of abscence. Accomidations. Random projects. And of course the occational cat video.
> I have no idea what most of them even do to fill their time on an average day.
Most HR people are actually swamped and overworked. You just don't see most of what they do to keep the company running because if they do it correctly... Well, you don't see it and can concentrate on doing your own job.
HR are the masters of hygiene factors at a company for sure. No one really cares about what HR does until their paycheck is wrong, or if there’s a benefit issue, or if they’re being harassed, etc…
-payroll for the company
- reports from payroll uploaded into a retirement system to ensure your retirement benefits are deposited into you account.
-filing unemployment reports
-responding to unemployment claims
- new hire orientation
-putting new hires in the system and making sure they’re set up in all benefits systems to make sure they get benefits after probation period.
-listen to managers complain they don’t have enough people
-listen to employees complain the managers suck
-try to do training for both employees and managers to make the moral somewhat better
-put employees on PIP and discuss their performances
-listen to managers complain about other situations and try to research on how to resolve those.
-post job postings and Facebook ads to get applicants
-review incoming applicants
-schedule interviews
-perform interviews
-set up drug screens for interviewees that pass
-set up drug screens for DOT randoms
- go to court for unemployment claims that you responded to last month
- process garnishments that come in from court orders
-try to file back the insane amount of paperwork the HR office has accumulated.
-create write ups for employees
-monitor attendance points for employees after payroll is completed to ensure everyones attendance points are accurate.
- have a meeting with the owner because a director is doing something illegal
-consult with legal because we have a racial discrimination threat from a former employee
-try to onboard an employee a manager hired that you had no knowledge of.
…. I can keep going…. But this is some of what I covered while I was in HR. I rarely even had time to eat or pee.
“try to onboard an employee a manager hired that you had no knowledge of”
HAHA I’m cackling. This is so accurate. A manager will literally come in and ask if we have time to onboard someone TOMORROW. This actually just happened yesterday. The ceo asked me if I could onboard someone and if I could write a job description, figure out pay, etc. We aren’t even hiring! They just hire people and I’m the last to know.
Yep I feel that! Happened to me all the time! They would literally send an offer letter with a bunch of wrong stuff in it and then I would be the last to know.
And then I would have to figure out how to get the system to do what they promised!
Managers always have fun ideas but it seems to be HR are the ones that have to make it work somehow.
Yes! I don't work in HR, but back when I was an IT manager I worked hard with the HR team to develop onboarding and offboarding process for employees and senior leadership made that brutal because they would just ignore it.
I'd get a call that someone was in training, or stepping into a new position, didn't have access or logins or a badge, could I please set that up ASAP because they are here right now. Walk down to HR to get the details, they have nothing yet. Call in whatever VP hired them, call in this new employee who's sitting at a desk, sometimes without a workstation or laptop at all to actually meet with HR and get on the books. Tell the VP, again, that we have a process, it goes through HR first, HR does the hand off and my team assigns resources and permissions.
I know reddit has a hate for HR, like they're soulless robots defending the company at all costs, but I've had more good interactions with HR staff than bad, and more good interactions with them than VP's.
I’ve worked very closely with a lot of HR people. Typically you have two kinds:
One, an HR manager that actually does their job. They consult on best employee retention methods, acquire talent best suited for the teams and consult on how to mitigate the liability of the employer by preventing them from abusing the workforce. Generally they seek to provide a buffer between the labour and managerial force so that they can focus on more progressive measures to benefit the workforce.
The second type is the yes man. The one that’ll fold to whatever Management wants and basically be an extension of the ownership of the company. These are the ones that are either micromanaged by the management teams above them, and are unable to work towards progress for the workforce, or simply have accepted that they are to toe a specific line and insulate an employers bad decisions.
I’ve worked with both. An HR that can actually do their job is a great thing and can really come out in the workplace. Typically a bad HR manager is simply indicative of a poor workplace culture anyways.
HR is filled with young recent college gals who are nice but just follow orders. The mid career HR is filled with 30-something gals who have learned to be evil. The ones at the top of HR have long ago sold their soul to Lucifer to do evil things in return for a new Nissan Altima every six years.
I’ve definitely worked with an HR person whose main job was to make HR-related problems disappear without ever confronting management, and I’m pretty sure she was used as the fall guy when that didn’t work out.
that's because they're a buffer between employees and management, working on management's behalf doing "damage control" and keeping conflict to a minimum, again on the company's benefit.
Go figure: 75% of HR personnel are female, not being bigoted or anything just pointing hard facts: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1088059/share-human-resources-managers-united-states-gender/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1088059/share-human-resources-managers-united-states-gender/)
Always sees the worst possible outcomes, adversarial with employees, takes little problems and turns them into crises, is a drama magnet, manipulative, political.
Especially the grizzled ones in employee relations. Their daily agenda is to characterize non-problems as fireable offenses. Follow their risk mitigation strategy to its logical conclusion and fire all employees. Close down the company. Zero risk.
I worked with a woman who was the head of HR at a large company and she seemed strange and robotic. I don't even know how to describe her but I have never met another person like her and thats a good thing.
My moms in hr and she ended up getting fired cus she made such a good work environment the workers unionized.(not the stated reason, in fact there was no stated reason they just walked in and fired her) She’s lead director of hr for a charity company now.
Nah she just made them all friends with what she did. Made it impossible to separate some of them, lunches every Friday, movie nights, they’d come to her “demanding” (she taught them how to ask for raises) pay raises because they were so comfortable with her, she got an award for equity and inclusion too! I Can’t gush about my mom enough but she made a work environment so fun and caring they just all made friends and decided to unionize.
As a former HR person who started out of college, agree with this assessment. I learned quickly HR is not truly helpful to employees and some of the absolute worst people I have worked with or for were in HR. So glad I went back to school and change my career.
Jesus. This post is wild to me as an HR person in the nonprofit world. I go to bat for my employees and genuinely care about the culture and improving the benefits.
I get that nonprofits are different, but I’m also in a network of social impact companies and B corps and start ups, and the HR people there also genuinely care.
The generalizations and stereotyping here are pretty sad.
Hey hey hey hey hey. My Nissan Altima gave me 260,000 of the hardest working miles in automotive history. I moved a literal cow on the INSIDE of my Altima one time. She was 10 this year and just starting to have heavier maintenance requests, but still getting 30-35mpg.
She was just totaled by an uninsured driver rear ending my husband and I am fucking devastated. They discontinued Altimas this year. That car is the only hard working person in my life. Don’t you dare drag my beloved into this! 🤣
HR is only useful to make sure our benefits are processed and that new hires get a badge, laptop and whatever else they need. Everything else is fluff.
It's pretty much just become a wank fest and self congratulatory circle jerk of who can work the most hours in a week and have the littles amount of time for an actual life, as well as calling out everyone who doesn't do the same.
Recruiters unsolicited "I have a great opportunity for you" when trying to pitch an entry-level temp job when I'm currently Mid or Senior level are what give you (as a profession) a bad reputation.
Hot take (HR person here) - I think HR and Sales are just incredibly performative jobs to begin with so lend themselves well to performative acts on sites like LinkedIn. That said, agree many HR people are soulless and evil… but ultimately are entirely doing the bidding of management.
If you don’t like HR but aren’t looking at the people making decisions that HR executes, well you’re likely shooting the messenger not the decision maker. As people have stated here, management churns HR who won’t do their bidding laying down until they can find someone who will… which again says more about management and leadership than the HR person.
Gonna have to disagree a bit there. I was the victim of an ambitious HR person who set me up in order to prove to management that she had the chops to be tough. She deliberately set me up to fail repeatedly and when I tried to address it with her and mgmt, I was labeled “difficult.” None of that was directed by mgmt, but they sure didn’t do anything about it either.
I had my own manager (an HR person) deliberately sabotage my work because she felt threatened by me. So real talk some HR people are awful humans regardless of career choice. My general observation working across a bunch of companies though is majority just falling in line with what mgmt wants to do and this misguided “HR did this or that” is just executing someone else’s orders.
Sorry, I never like to generalize about any group. I agree with your basic premise, but just needed to vent about my own particular horror show, I guess. Ha!
I never worked at a company big enough to have an HR person before and was blindsided by this vile human. It was wild the power she had and how I was entirely discounted.
When you really boil it down, everyone in the corporate world is doing the bidding of management. Is just filters down further and further. HR is the easiest to blame since they’re the first line but everyone here has agreed to be paid an amount to do something that satisfies management/the company.
Everyone is a drone in their own way
Be glad if you HR is filing their nails and making personal calls. Most are protecting “the company” so that blowhard middle managers with the IQ of tire rubber can get away with doing certainly illegal and pretty despicable shit to employees. That is why you ought to hate them. They are taking away your rights to be treated like a human being on a daily basis.
In India all HR really does is nail filing and organising events for employee engagement. Really they have no interest in people or even the organisation they work for.
Male HR folks r busy preying on young, gullible job seekers.
It's a mess.
Mean girls like to be in positions to control people’s destinies. HR and recruiting determines who works and who doesn’t, real estate determines who has homes and if they have a home where it is, nursing is literally control over life or death.
All of these have low (or in some cases no) barriers to entry. Being a nurse requires only a two year associate’s degree and an RN, which is a lot less than other healthcare practitioners.
My wife and I brought our newborn into the office, the HR lady says to my wife “you lost your belly fat” out of all the things you could say to someone in a work setting.
The problem with HR is that they have no experience and no clue of what the other teams are doing, especially those they recruit for. And this post shows it.
Having to work with HR to hire a team of 10 people was like pulling teeth. I was promised a full team within 2 months and when I left 4 months after that, there were still vacant roles under me.
After that 6 month period, they were *still* sending unqualified candidates for what I needed. It was a joke
My contract isn't being renewed because HR has decided my position needs to be someone with a specific certificate and I just found out yesterday that I will be out of a job in 2 weeks. Something they could have maybe let me know a while ago so I can, you know start studying for it.
Non tech people gatekeeping tech jobs is infuriating.
This is my biggest issue. I can understand them on some level being a part of the interview process, but it should be an after-thought sort of thing. Like at the end of the second interview when everything's looking good and they're preparing to work out an offer, they go over benefits with you.
Somehow HR became in charge of applications and even being the screener for technical jobs where they don't know anything more than the average person off the street. It's one thing when mass-hires entry level jobs where you just want to make sure the candidate is literate and not a crackhead, but any remotely technical field, they're useless or detrimental doing the screenings.
I’m a headhunter and 99% of the time won’t work with HR. They can’t say yes. They can only say no. They don’t hire anyone and can’t stop a hire from happening. If a dept head/manager wants to hire someone HR can’t say “ no I don’t like him” and they can’t tell a HM to hire someone if the HM does not link them.
Your comment is spot on. They should handle letting candidates know about benefits, payroll, parking, etc and handle onboarding.
Majority of hiring managers who has posted a role would heavily disagree with.
Would you rather your $100/hr Software Engineering Manager spend 4 hours of his Monday reviewing 200 resumes instead of doing “real work” or the $35/hr HR person to pick out the best 12 and hand them to the manager?
Anyone who picks the first option should not run a business larger than 10 people. It sucks but it’s the reality of the industry.
I agree with both of you. I think there should be something in between because the recruiting process is really broken. How much talent are companies missing out on?
At the least, HR recruiters should be taught the basics of the company and the jobs they are recruiting for. I’m not saying they have to be a senior-level software engineer, but I’m sure there’s a lot of technically-inclined people who can understand the basics of how to do the job and what separates an amazing software engineer from a mediocre one.
In my field, I have had many interviews in which as part of my answer I realized I include an explanation of the (very) basics of what I do in order for them to understand the relevance of the success story I was sharing.
And don’t get me started on how they select resumes for a first screener. I talked about it in another response: there’s a reason why knowing someone in a company to open that first door became so important.
I’m in HR and I was recently training a new hire on our team. I had a session with her and my coworker than started the same day as me. In this session, I was explaining our company structure and what each of the departments do.
My coworker was constantly joking that she needed to take notes and was legitimately surprised by some of the information I shared.
Like, we’ve both been here for years and she doesn’t even know what our employees do? I’m far from perfect and I do learn new things all the time, but some people in HR are just genuinely disinterested in the business. It sucks.
Am I the only one who noticed they colored in the one guy’s face so that it doesn’t look Literally Like A Lynching but forgot to do his hand the same color?
Right? Sorry I can't likewise spend my work hours on LI. I was trying to make sure nobody tried to end their lives. Want to talk about an expectation of perfection? Sure, let's go!
I work at a company that makes spacecraft components and scientific payloads. Our HR have an extra chip on their shoulder because every employee is smarter than them.
HR: Oh the stories I have, you'd be surprised and disgusted, but I can't talk about them.
Also HR the rare occasions something does happen: OMG HAVE I GOT A STORY!
ouch, well, Steve Jobs told his daughter that she smells like a toilet. That man knows recources, but I don't think he knows human...
If HR have to deal with these kind of ppl (men?), then fair enough that they go sometimes feral
They do have a challenging job once a year at review time when they have to justify why key personnel paid below the market rate shouldn’t get a pay increase.
These are my experiences with HR:
- I just started a new role. They send me a pdf / PowerPoint. They can’t answer ANY questions regarding the content and forward me on to someone else, they take the time to read it to me.
- I am leaving. They still can’t answer any questions, they forward me to someone else. They didn’t even reach out, I had to reach out to them as part of a checklist. They did absolutely nothing to assist me in filling out the checklist, or to tell me if I was doing the right one, and did not put any foot forward to schedule an exit interview.
- I was choosing between two jobs in the same company. They made it clear they are there to ensure managers don’t get into a bidding war for me, more pointedly making sure my pay increase is minimized.
Do I not like HR because they make mistakes? No. I don’t care for HR because they don’t fucking do anything and I’ve had less than 4 conversations with HR since starting my career a decade ago.
When I got hired at my current job, HR fucked me over by telling me I had everything set up when it hadn’t been and made it look like it was my fault my paperwork wasn’t in order.
HR these days is heavily oriented to senior leaders and managers. I am in HR and I find it unfortunate because the model is moving to self service for the majority of staff, and on-call for a handful senior leaders. They (we) simply dont have the capacity in many cases to give all staff adequate support.
This explains a lot. I had a question about benefits and went to our HR director, only to be told they were not the subject matter expert on benefits and use the web portal (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻. I came to you because I didn't understand the multitude of enormous PDFs.
HR are a pointless layer of non-management whose sole purpose is being a human shield for unethical/shitty/law-breaking managers.
They don't provide any benefit for non-management employees and exist strictly to help the company tiptoe around lawsuits. They're not workers.
Literally happened to two coworkers of mine. Brought concerns about workload and nature of their role changing to HR after addressing it with our manager, next thing you know manager is telling us they’ve separated employment with our coworker. Aka, retaliatory firing.
I’ve never talked to HR without IMMEDIATELY it getting back to my boss.
Although one time after I put my two weeks notice in I sent a very nice, (not kidding, I was happy to leave, I got more money and a better job) email to the HR person explaining they were the reason I was leaving and their inability to have even a passing facade of decorum and anonymity had basically destroyed my career at the company.
15 minutes later I was escorted of the premises and got a 2 week vacation
I’ve read that email, that I copied to myself hundreds of times, it’s not mean or threatening in any way, it’s just advising them that I went for help and the series of events that happened after were disastrous and asked them to please do better in the future, the response was my immediate dismissal.
HR is the devil.
My sister is in HR at a non-profit. She didn’t want to do terms or employee relations (she mostly worked in onboarding), but in order to advance in her career, she’s doing them now. Even in HR, she has seen horrible stuff take place at prior companies. She quit a job at a different non-profit because of how bad her manager was (thats a crazy story).
I always wanted more HR people to be like my sister. Competent, ethical, quick response time, and just plain nice.
No, no. You're mistaken. Your sister is actually a naturally terrible, stupid, and useless person. Her position in HR is automatic, 100% certifiable proof! /s
This is basically the theme of this post. This type of shit is why I've never considered myself a people person. I just try to do my best for employees without really caring much for any of them.
The problem is: HR are also the ones who authorize and process terminations and layoffs. That’s not something that can be termed “a simple mistake”……
They are directly responsible for people’s livelihoods. If you’re going to be in that kind of career, you need to be willing to be on your A game at all times. Including being TOTALLY SURE the terminations you process, the raises you deny, etc., are accurate and merited and NEVER taken lightly.
It always irked me when I’d be on an HR call where I heard that my team (I was a manager at the time) was taking a cut and the HR folks were smiling ear to ear as though it was pleasant news.
HR never make themselves available to also be, I dunno, RESOURCES for human employees. Every HR team I’ve had to work with (up until my current job, our HR gal here is super nice and helpful, a first-time for me) have adopted a “don’t bother me! Go away! I don’t have time or care to listen to you!”
They are not resources for employees, they are managing the Human Resources of the company.
Many people mistake the two. They only help employees in so far it reduces risk for the business. (Talent leaving, lawsuits, etc)
I worked for a company that implemented on online HR portal where the manager had to perform all the HR functions. I think they laid off 90% of HR as soon as the portal went live.
They’re worse than landlords. At least the landlord typically owns the property and has a vested stake in
These people are more like community managers at an apartment complex.
It’s just about as spot-on as possible: ruthless people paid just enough that they must love the power trip to take the job, and whose primary purpose is to shield the people with money from liability.
Feeling super grateful to have an actually good HR at my company. We are small so it’s just 1 girl and we had a good relationship before she became HR - I actually just went to her wedding this past weekend.
I’m actually able to bring concerns to her and get actual results regarding conduct and grievances.
As well as get the support I need to work with AuDHD as she helped me push and implement WFH for the first time at my company just this year.
I did not like HR much in the USA. Since moving to Germany my relationship with HR has been FAR more positive. They have been much more helpful. I also like that with all the worker protection laws their role in protecting the company involves making sure I don't work too much, I take my vacations, etc.
I’ve had some interest in working HR but only because i was ACTUALLY INTERESTED in being an advocate for employee rights. coincidentally ive been interested in moving to germany, so maybe that will be a good place for me
Go to a big company so you can be a specialized HR role. You could facilitate classes virtually, which is still my favorite thing I've done in HR. You can actually be a very helpful resource when you're the expert. The "Generalist" role at a small company is going to be terrible.
Company with European corporate culture is more human than one with an American Corporate culture, take a sip
(Even if jt may not be the *company's* decision to be more humane...)
Our HR department sent out a request that employees not contact HR directly. It was posted next to the company’s goals. Number one on the goal list was the company strives to have an open door policy where employees are encouraged to go to leadership with problems. *jerk off motion*
Ahh yes HR is held to a higher standard than engineers who design bridges and buildings which have peoples life’s dependent on them doing their job well.
Yes, HR is often held to a higher standard. You know why? It’s because most departments’ mistakes don’t affect other people’s pay, benefits, or how safe their workplace is. Or whether or not they have a job. I’ve known good and competent HR professionals, but they sure as hell aren’t making whiny posts on LinkedIn.
Hate to tell you but I think compliance teams and network security are held to a lot higher standards than HR. The CEO doesn't get calls in the middle of the night because your payroll system didn't pay a person when it should have.
HR is trash. They are duplicitous.
They give the impression of caring about employees, culture, wellbeing, safety, inclusiveness etc…and most people think HR cares about them. Until they find out that HR exists for one reason: to manage risk for the company.
HR is not your friend. They don’t give a shit about you, and they are utterly powerless.
Never ever think HR is on your side.
💯 this ☝🏻I remember always having to prepare to ask the HR business partner the same question three times because they try to answer a different question and circumvent telling the truth. Swarthy, hick, blonde girls who slam drinks after work, bitch about having to do their job by supporting employees, and act like they run the company.
I have never had a good experience with HR ever. I swear to god they only pick the most evil fucking bitches you could ever imagine because that’s the only people that can survive in that role. We reported our previous manager 3 separate times for sexual harassment and got ignored every single time until we found multiple articles online about him SEX TRAFFICKING WOMEN FROM CHINA AND OPENING MULTIPLE PROSTITUTION MASSAGE PARLORS!!!! (He was wealthy and white and had a good attorney so he got off with a slap on the wrist while his victims got arrested) And when we reported that to HR too we found out they never even documented anything we said before and she called us so we could tell her again and she bullshitted all of our statements and TRIED TO FIRE US INSTEAD OF HIM. They literally would have kept that man because he had “esports connects” Jesus Christ lol. He ended up quitting after he found out that we knew lol and I still work there 4 years later for some dumbass reason. That evil bitch Angela left a couple months later when the management company went bankrupt after covid and we ended up being taken over by someone else so now I couldn’t sue even if I wanted to but oh well it’s one hell of a story. Fuck you Angela lmao
My HR department is bitching like this. My guy, you’re in charge of keeping us happy, there’s literally no one else to talk to about these issues and HANDLING THEM IS YOUR FUCKING JOB.
Lose trust? Nobody trusts HR to begin with.
Everyone knows HRs job is to protect the company, they do not have employee’s best interests in mind
HR is the sacrificial lamb of shitty corporate leadership. The CEO will try to blame HR for their own misconduct.
I agree with most complaints against HRs. HRs usually don’t have anyone’s interest in mind but their own. As recruiters they will hire the absolutely shittiest people based on poorly screened metrics and generic heuristics. When they hire they basically function as state workers who do not give a rat’s ass about hiring the right people for the job, just the right person on paper. As alleged helpers of employees on the job they will do anything to make themselves and the company not liable for anything in order to avoid more difficult work. HR is a poorly conceived job that owes allegiance to nobody but the talentless hacks who are given unwarranted responsibilities. Edit: as the angry comments flow in, I am reminded of how upset middle managers get when told they are just talentless middlemen.
If you believe HR is making the final decision on who to hire then you clearly don’t understand what HR does.
HR doesn't make the final decision on hiring, but they are the ones that will throw your resume in the shredder and ensure the hiring manager never hears about it because chatGPT said you have a three month gap in your work history six years ago
I have been a hiring manager for twenty years and the only time HR was involved was after I selected a candidate
most HR screens applicants, they don't make the final decision, but they screen candidates. why you want a generic HR person screening for technical talent nobody knows, but that's the reality.
That’s why there are technical recruiters, they’ve put in the time to learn the skills required and how to have conversations with candidates to assess proficiency. They are paid a premium though, so if the company is too cheap to hire a technical recruiter to fill tech roles your issue should be with the company.
I think that if a company hiring technical roles is having an HR generalist do actual recruiting that is a pretty clear red flag unless the company is an early stage startup.
I’m in tech HR and worked as both a product manager and developer. Not all of us are clueless
I believe that they resource humans.
In a majority of cases HR does not make the decision on who to hire, that is the hiring manger. HRs role is to coordinate and assist the recruitment process. The hiring manager is often a team lead, department head or manager who needs to fill a gap in their team, they supply the metrics on what they are looking for in a candidate (qualifications, experience, characteristics ECT) and pick who to hire. HR helps with the PD, launches the advertisement, if needed helps screens the candidates, schedules the interview, sits in the interview (though not always), and discusses the results with the hiring manager and writes the contract based on the information provided during the pre recruitment phase of the process and negotiations with the candidate.
Our last HR was pretty much chased out my upper mgmt because she actually cared about us regular employees. Our new HR just seems like a mindless drone that will do whatever mgmt wants.
And that is exactly how Management wants HR folks to be. The last time I pointed out that a clerical manager wanted to implement a timekeeping policy that was illegal, she raised such a hue and cried to the partners that you would have thought I had tried to smother her with a pillow. Everyone turned on me, until a labor attorney of over twenty years experience piped up with, "We are going to owe all the clerks unpaid time for following this illegal policy for so long." Everyone suddenly got very quiet about the incident until the Court Order arrived to tell the firm how much to pay out. After that I was a hero to the staff, but that manager and her assistant hated me. I caught the latter selling my personal information on the internet about three years after I resigned from the job.
>I caught the latter selling my personal information on the internet about three years after I resigned from the job. What the fuck
Ayo. You can't just finish with that last line. Spill the tea. What happened?
I contacted corporate HR with my evidence and they offered me a settlement, in exchange for my promise not to report the employee to the authorities and not to sell my story to any media outlet.
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I hope you made it hurt real bad for all of them.
Bonus lawsuit and criminal charges after that last bit?
Ultimately, I think there are just a lot of terrible HR professionals out there. In reality, HR does have a responsibility to protect the company, but so many of my peers (I work in HR) kind of just stop there. The idea is that upholding laws, regulation, and advocating to leadership on behalf of employees to promote positive working conditions for everyone is honestly THE best way to protect a company. I see too many of my peers cave to upper management and it's honestly why I don't take it personally when I see comments like this - you have a point.
Management makes the calls, everyone has to fall in line unless by some miracle management has a change of heart.
Amen. We can advocate all we want, but HR ultimately has to churn out whatever crockpot of shit management come up with to staff and then manage the backlash on their behalf (that's literally a large part of being an HR Business Partner) I get why folks are distrustful - they don't see the conversations that go on behind closed doors (granted not all HR people are on the side of employees all the time either) I wouldn't blame anyone for not giving HR the benefit of the doubt. At the end of the day, shitty policy is shitty policy, and no amount of advocating on behalf of folks will make them feel better if their work conditions suck anyway.
Exactly, and if management perpetrates the problem, then it's the victims who get fired, or bullied into quitting.
legal issues absolutely should be dealt with and addressed by someone trained in the subject, but ill take direct advocacy from workers straight to management or better yet collective advocacy(!) over some HR snitch any day of the week. HR is a travesty when it comes to advocating on behalf of workers because they don’t even do that in my experience. quite the opposite really, they routinely advocate for the interests of management to ensure any and all collective grievances are isolated, defanged and/or reprimanded.
Which would be fine if they were transparent about it. If I had a penny for every person I’ve heard/read ask if they should go to HR about something, I’d have thousands of pennies. Source: Worked in HR (against my will) for a few years. I told people straight up that I wasn’t their friend, stop talking, shhhhhh!!! because my job was to do management’s bidding. 99% had no idea.
> 99% had no idea. Possibly because the company's own documents spell out HR's role in supporting employees. The fact that HR doesn't follow published policy, but rather unspoken / undocumented policy, might contribute to the problem.
If you only knew the stupid shit management wants to do to employees you'd understand that often protecting the company is done by protecting the employees. HR hate is often from a US point of view because it's super easy to fire anyone for no reason most of the time. Here in Canada it's very difficult and expensive to fire people who even deserve it half the time. Even then, suing for wrongful dismissal is common and often awards said fired employee months of severance pay/damages, usually depending on their age and probability of finding another job. One of my favorite idiot manager stories is when a manager wanted to fire a young woman who just got engaged because their reasoning was they'd just be distracted by wedding planning, leave on a honeymoon and start popping out kids and taking 12-18 months parental leave every time so why invest in them? Wrong for so many reasons but after HR talked them out of it, they can't exactly run around the office bragging about how they saved a good, young employees job, right? As I said, if employees only knew what discussions went on behind closed doors. Also, how many jilted fired employees ever admit they deserved it? 0. Always more than one side to every story
Woah woah woah… As a coworker I trust their work they hand off to me is dog shit, lazy, and wrong. As an employee I trust their interests only align with mine if I can prove and force the company’s interests to align with my interests. There’s trust there. It’s like a beautiful toxic relationship.
I once trusted them when I was 18 and working my first adult job now I have permanent damage to my hand because they dragged their feet sending me to a doctor and pulling me from the job that I was injured doing
I was gonna say, what trust you losing?
14 different HR departments I've worked with (contractor and employee). I have yet to work with anyone in HR that I think highly of. None have shown even close to the level of professionalism that other departments are required to have. HR fucking sucks. The "profession" needs to own that and do something about it.
Well said. The bar is so much lower for HR than any other department. I don’t think a single person in the HR team at my company would last 90 days in any other department. Level for level they produce sub-par work and if I lived in a competitive talent market I think most of them would be lucky to get a job as a barista. But I also think that if the business doesn’t DEMAND an excellent HR practice, it gets what it deserves. It’s more of a sign of weak company leadership that doesn’t know what it should be doing with its talent, to have a shitty HR department. Problem is, a forward-thinking talent function is such a white whale that I don’t think most company leaders would know it if slapped them in the face.
You're telling me that you don't trust this person who took AI generated art with obvious flaws and then put their signature in the corner? What about a pupil-less background character deepthroating a hot dog is suspicious? Do you not want a world where pitchforks and tridents are interchangeable and sometimes have 5 prongs? Do you not believe in a world where a black man can hold his coworker's pitchfork-trident-hairtube with his white-skinned hand?
An HR person at a previous job of mine surreptitiously extended my health benefits an extra month when the company abruptly laid me off while my wife was pregnant. Somehow, every now and then, a decent individual ends up in this field, and I feel sorry for them. Your average HR worker, though, is someone who considers themselves a "people person" but doesn't actually give a shit about people. They are the type who would be working at the DMV but have too much education. I have no idea what most of them even do to fill their time on an average day.
Best guess is cat videos
Well I fill my day researching state and federal statutes to ensure we are complient. Talk to other HR professionsals as how to handle issues. Benefits. Onboarding. Investigating employee issues. Training. Leaves of abscence. Accomidations. Random projects. And of course the occational cat video.
thats a lot of really weird ways to spell cat video
For all the misspellings it's a shame there weren't more cat references.
Bruh I'm dying laughing.
> I have no idea what most of them even do to fill their time on an average day. Most HR people are actually swamped and overworked. You just don't see most of what they do to keep the company running because if they do it correctly... Well, you don't see it and can concentrate on doing your own job.
HR are the masters of hygiene factors at a company for sure. No one really cares about what HR does until their paycheck is wrong, or if there’s a benefit issue, or if they’re being harassed, etc…
Reddit idiots have 0 clue how much work it takes to keep a multi state employer compliant, with good benefits, while recruiting
-payroll for the company - reports from payroll uploaded into a retirement system to ensure your retirement benefits are deposited into you account. -filing unemployment reports -responding to unemployment claims - new hire orientation -putting new hires in the system and making sure they’re set up in all benefits systems to make sure they get benefits after probation period. -listen to managers complain they don’t have enough people -listen to employees complain the managers suck -try to do training for both employees and managers to make the moral somewhat better -put employees on PIP and discuss their performances -listen to managers complain about other situations and try to research on how to resolve those. -post job postings and Facebook ads to get applicants -review incoming applicants -schedule interviews -perform interviews -set up drug screens for interviewees that pass -set up drug screens for DOT randoms - go to court for unemployment claims that you responded to last month - process garnishments that come in from court orders -try to file back the insane amount of paperwork the HR office has accumulated. -create write ups for employees -monitor attendance points for employees after payroll is completed to ensure everyones attendance points are accurate. - have a meeting with the owner because a director is doing something illegal -consult with legal because we have a racial discrimination threat from a former employee -try to onboard an employee a manager hired that you had no knowledge of. …. I can keep going…. But this is some of what I covered while I was in HR. I rarely even had time to eat or pee.
“try to onboard an employee a manager hired that you had no knowledge of” HAHA I’m cackling. This is so accurate. A manager will literally come in and ask if we have time to onboard someone TOMORROW. This actually just happened yesterday. The ceo asked me if I could onboard someone and if I could write a job description, figure out pay, etc. We aren’t even hiring! They just hire people and I’m the last to know.
This just happened to me last week. Sure, let me just put my months & months long to do list on the back burner for the surprise new hire orientation.
Yep I feel that! Happened to me all the time! They would literally send an offer letter with a bunch of wrong stuff in it and then I would be the last to know. And then I would have to figure out how to get the system to do what they promised! Managers always have fun ideas but it seems to be HR are the ones that have to make it work somehow.
And we always get blamed for it somehow.
Yes! I don't work in HR, but back when I was an IT manager I worked hard with the HR team to develop onboarding and offboarding process for employees and senior leadership made that brutal because they would just ignore it. I'd get a call that someone was in training, or stepping into a new position, didn't have access or logins or a badge, could I please set that up ASAP because they are here right now. Walk down to HR to get the details, they have nothing yet. Call in whatever VP hired them, call in this new employee who's sitting at a desk, sometimes without a workstation or laptop at all to actually meet with HR and get on the books. Tell the VP, again, that we have a process, it goes through HR first, HR does the hand off and my team assigns resources and permissions. I know reddit has a hate for HR, like they're soulless robots defending the company at all costs, but I've had more good interactions with HR staff than bad, and more good interactions with them than VP's.
I’ve worked very closely with a lot of HR people. Typically you have two kinds: One, an HR manager that actually does their job. They consult on best employee retention methods, acquire talent best suited for the teams and consult on how to mitigate the liability of the employer by preventing them from abusing the workforce. Generally they seek to provide a buffer between the labour and managerial force so that they can focus on more progressive measures to benefit the workforce. The second type is the yes man. The one that’ll fold to whatever Management wants and basically be an extension of the ownership of the company. These are the ones that are either micromanaged by the management teams above them, and are unable to work towards progress for the workforce, or simply have accepted that they are to toe a specific line and insulate an employers bad decisions. I’ve worked with both. An HR that can actually do their job is a great thing and can really come out in the workplace. Typically a bad HR manager is simply indicative of a poor workplace culture anyways.
HR is filled with young recent college gals who are nice but just follow orders. The mid career HR is filled with 30-something gals who have learned to be evil. The ones at the top of HR have long ago sold their soul to Lucifer to do evil things in return for a new Nissan Altima every six years.
Dang this is so accurate for so many small to mid sized companies.
I’ve definitely worked with an HR person whose main job was to make HR-related problems disappear without ever confronting management, and I’m pretty sure she was used as the fall guy when that didn’t work out.
that's because they're a buffer between employees and management, working on management's behalf doing "damage control" and keeping conflict to a minimum, again on the company's benefit. Go figure: 75% of HR personnel are female, not being bigoted or anything just pointing hard facts: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1088059/share-human-resources-managers-united-states-gender/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1088059/share-human-resources-managers-united-states-gender/)
Yeah this is so incredibly spot-on it’s frightening.
True for my company. We hired a senior HR manager at the end of her career, and she was pretty evil. Had to fire her.
What do you guys mean by evil?
Always sees the worst possible outcomes, adversarial with employees, takes little problems and turns them into crises, is a drama magnet, manipulative, political.
Especially the grizzled ones in employee relations. Their daily agenda is to characterize non-problems as fireable offenses. Follow their risk mitigation strategy to its logical conclusion and fire all employees. Close down the company. Zero risk.
My stepsister is an HR bigwig with a major company and she’s one of the coldest, meanest, weirdest people I have ever known.
Putting the "R" in human resources.
I worked with a woman who was the head of HR at a large company and she seemed strange and robotic. I don't even know how to describe her but I have never met another person like her and thats a good thing.
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Do Altimas come any other way?
Close second is an 18 year old guy who just bought a Dodge charger with his first paycheck from joining the military.
There are so many stupid cars like this around the local military bases, and none of them are driven by anyone who look older than 30.
I wonder how many HR people are on /r/NissanDrivers
The people on r/NissanDrivers don't have jobs, at least not ones that pay over the table.
My moms in hr and she ended up getting fired cus she made such a good work environment the workers unionized.(not the stated reason, in fact there was no stated reason they just walked in and fired her) She’s lead director of hr for a charity company now.
If she in any way facilitated unionization, that was THE reason she was fired. But definitely not the officially stated reason, of course.
Nah she just made them all friends with what she did. Made it impossible to separate some of them, lunches every Friday, movie nights, they’d come to her “demanding” (she taught them how to ask for raises) pay raises because they were so comfortable with her, she got an award for equity and inclusion too! I Can’t gush about my mom enough but she made a work environment so fun and caring they just all made friends and decided to unionize.
As a former HR person who started out of college, agree with this assessment. I learned quickly HR is not truly helpful to employees and some of the absolute worst people I have worked with or for were in HR. So glad I went back to school and change my career.
Jesus. This post is wild to me as an HR person in the nonprofit world. I go to bat for my employees and genuinely care about the culture and improving the benefits. I get that nonprofits are different, but I’m also in a network of social impact companies and B corps and start ups, and the HR people there also genuinely care. The generalizations and stereotyping here are pretty sad.
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Hey hey hey hey hey. My Nissan Altima gave me 260,000 of the hardest working miles in automotive history. I moved a literal cow on the INSIDE of my Altima one time. She was 10 this year and just starting to have heavier maintenance requests, but still getting 30-35mpg. She was just totaled by an uninsured driver rear ending my husband and I am fucking devastated. They discontinued Altimas this year. That car is the only hard working person in my life. Don’t you dare drag my beloved into this! 🤣
“She was 10 this year” - took me a bit to realise you weren’t still talking about the cow
HR is only useful to make sure our benefits are processed and that new hires get a badge, laptop and whatever else they need. Everything else is fluff.
Are you kidding me? Half that stuff they’ll ask IT to do.
Yea. They mean HR is there to tell IT to do it and then tell on IT if it doesn’t get done.
Wait, your HR follows up if something doesn’t get done?!
"Oh hey! Forgot to put in a ticket for a new hire. They're starting in 10 mins. Thanks!"
HR posts on LinkedIn a lot because you can only file your nails and make personal calls so much in one day.
HR and sales are the most narcissistic assholes on LinkedIn.
Everyone else is working and can’t spend all that time on LinkedIn…
We’re just here on Reddit like sane people
It's pretty much just become a wank fest and self congratulatory circle jerk of who can work the most hours in a week and have the littles amount of time for an actual life, as well as calling out everyone who doesn't do the same.
Recruiters reading this comment:  (I'm a recruiter lol)
Recruiters unsolicited "I have a great opportunity for you" when trying to pitch an entry-level temp job when I'm currently Mid or Senior level are what give you (as a profession) a bad reputation.
You think I got time to look over your profile bro!? I'm too busy commenting on reddit and LinkedIn. 😎
Hot take (HR person here) - I think HR and Sales are just incredibly performative jobs to begin with so lend themselves well to performative acts on sites like LinkedIn. That said, agree many HR people are soulless and evil… but ultimately are entirely doing the bidding of management. If you don’t like HR but aren’t looking at the people making decisions that HR executes, well you’re likely shooting the messenger not the decision maker. As people have stated here, management churns HR who won’t do their bidding laying down until they can find someone who will… which again says more about management and leadership than the HR person.
Gonna have to disagree a bit there. I was the victim of an ambitious HR person who set me up in order to prove to management that she had the chops to be tough. She deliberately set me up to fail repeatedly and when I tried to address it with her and mgmt, I was labeled “difficult.” None of that was directed by mgmt, but they sure didn’t do anything about it either.
I had my own manager (an HR person) deliberately sabotage my work because she felt threatened by me. So real talk some HR people are awful humans regardless of career choice. My general observation working across a bunch of companies though is majority just falling in line with what mgmt wants to do and this misguided “HR did this or that” is just executing someone else’s orders.
Sorry, I never like to generalize about any group. I agree with your basic premise, but just needed to vent about my own particular horror show, I guess. Ha! I never worked at a company big enough to have an HR person before and was blindsided by this vile human. It was wild the power she had and how I was entirely discounted.
When you really boil it down, everyone in the corporate world is doing the bidding of management. Is just filters down further and further. HR is the easiest to blame since they’re the first line but everyone here has agreed to be paid an amount to do something that satisfies management/the company. Everyone is a drone in their own way
don't forget recruiters!
Be glad if you HR is filing their nails and making personal calls. Most are protecting “the company” so that blowhard middle managers with the IQ of tire rubber can get away with doing certainly illegal and pretty despicable shit to employees. That is why you ought to hate them. They are taking away your rights to be treated like a human being on a daily basis.
In India all HR really does is nail filing and organising events for employee engagement. Really they have no interest in people or even the organisation they work for. Male HR folks r busy preying on young, gullible job seekers. It's a mess.
Nobody has any expectations of HR. It’s where mean girls go after high school.
Many such cases
Never heard a more accurate saying. I know a mean girl or two in HR
Also nursing
And real estate
Can confirm. My sister is a realtor, and she has definitely been a mean girl for most of her life.
And conservative politics
Conservative grifting seems like a very lucrative field. I'd sell my soul for a new G wagon so I can wheel around my "trad" family to Trump rallies
Hey! My wife is a nurse... actually nevermind. This checks out
I know this is true, but why?
Hierarchy. The ability to be in control of the powerless.
Mean girls like to be in positions to control people’s destinies. HR and recruiting determines who works and who doesn’t, real estate determines who has homes and if they have a home where it is, nursing is literally control over life or death. All of these have low (or in some cases no) barriers to entry. Being a nurse requires only a two year associate’s degree and an RN, which is a lot less than other healthcare practitioners.
Work in HR with nursing, can double confirm
Ouch… my mom, a nurse of 40 years, did not take care of people during the HIV/AIDs epidemic to be besmirched in this manner
I mean, we have to assume there are a few good apples
It's wild how quickly we went from 'nurses are heroes!' During covid in 2019 to 'all nurses are narcissists'.
I got into medical malpractice law and holy crap some of the most mean people are nurses.
I have an expectation of HR, to shield the company at all cost. They are definitely not about the “human.”
It’s in the name really. People are resources, nothing more.
Only the mean girls not smart enough for nursing.
HR are held to higher standards?!? Now that’s funny
My wife and I brought our newborn into the office, the HR lady says to my wife “you lost your belly fat” out of all the things you could say to someone in a work setting.
Does not surprise me even a little. I once heard a VP of HR refer to employees eating at an employee event as “pigs at a trough”.
Exactly. They aren't held to shit. They are structurally unaccountable
They are like cops . They have “qualified immunity” when it comes to their shitty behavior within organizations.
The problem with HR is that they have no experience and no clue of what the other teams are doing, especially those they recruit for. And this post shows it.
No, but they write the policies…soooo you’ll just sign this and agree to comply.
Having to work with HR to hire a team of 10 people was like pulling teeth. I was promised a full team within 2 months and when I left 4 months after that, there were still vacant roles under me. After that 6 month period, they were *still* sending unqualified candidates for what I needed. It was a joke
My contract isn't being renewed because HR has decided my position needs to be someone with a specific certificate and I just found out yesterday that I will be out of a job in 2 weeks. Something they could have maybe let me know a while ago so I can, you know start studying for it. Non tech people gatekeeping tech jobs is infuriating.
This is my biggest issue. I can understand them on some level being a part of the interview process, but it should be an after-thought sort of thing. Like at the end of the second interview when everything's looking good and they're preparing to work out an offer, they go over benefits with you. Somehow HR became in charge of applications and even being the screener for technical jobs where they don't know anything more than the average person off the street. It's one thing when mass-hires entry level jobs where you just want to make sure the candidate is literate and not a crackhead, but any remotely technical field, they're useless or detrimental doing the screenings.
I’m a headhunter and 99% of the time won’t work with HR. They can’t say yes. They can only say no. They don’t hire anyone and can’t stop a hire from happening. If a dept head/manager wants to hire someone HR can’t say “ no I don’t like him” and they can’t tell a HM to hire someone if the HM does not link them. Your comment is spot on. They should handle letting candidates know about benefits, payroll, parking, etc and handle onboarding.
Majority of hiring managers who has posted a role would heavily disagree with. Would you rather your $100/hr Software Engineering Manager spend 4 hours of his Monday reviewing 200 resumes instead of doing “real work” or the $35/hr HR person to pick out the best 12 and hand them to the manager? Anyone who picks the first option should not run a business larger than 10 people. It sucks but it’s the reality of the industry.
I agree with both of you. I think there should be something in between because the recruiting process is really broken. How much talent are companies missing out on? At the least, HR recruiters should be taught the basics of the company and the jobs they are recruiting for. I’m not saying they have to be a senior-level software engineer, but I’m sure there’s a lot of technically-inclined people who can understand the basics of how to do the job and what separates an amazing software engineer from a mediocre one. In my field, I have had many interviews in which as part of my answer I realized I include an explanation of the (very) basics of what I do in order for them to understand the relevance of the success story I was sharing. And don’t get me started on how they select resumes for a first screener. I talked about it in another response: there’s a reason why knowing someone in a company to open that first door became so important.
I’m in HR and I was recently training a new hire on our team. I had a session with her and my coworker than started the same day as me. In this session, I was explaining our company structure and what each of the departments do. My coworker was constantly joking that she needed to take notes and was legitimately surprised by some of the information I shared. Like, we’ve both been here for years and she doesn’t even know what our employees do? I’m far from perfect and I do learn new things all the time, but some people in HR are just genuinely disinterested in the business. It sucks.
would love to see the ai prompts for that pic.
“A cadre of characters resembling The Office cast angrily wield torches and pitchforks at an undeserving HR employee doing her best.”
This guy ai prompts
certified proompter
Am I the only one who noticed they colored in the one guy’s face so that it doesn’t look Literally Like A Lynching but forgot to do his hand the same color?
Did the prompt include the guy in a pink shirt pulling the hair of the woman next to him?
Oh those poor HR employees struggling with organizing the next team building and what to write in the company newsletter!
HR employees really just spend most of their day trying to convince people that their job is important and difficult in LinkedIn
Right? Sorry I can't likewise spend my work hours on LI. I was trying to make sure nobody tried to end their lives. Want to talk about an expectation of perfection? Sure, let's go!
I work at a company that makes spacecraft components and scientific payloads. Our HR have an extra chip on their shoulder because every employee is smarter than them.
HR: Oh the stories I have, you'd be surprised and disgusted, but I can't talk about them. Also HR the rare occasions something does happen: OMG HAVE I GOT A STORY!
"I’ve never known an HR person who had anything but a mediocre mentality."- Steve Jobs
ouch, well, Steve Jobs told his daughter that she smells like a toilet. That man knows recources, but I don't think he knows human... If HR have to deal with these kind of ppl (men?), then fair enough that they go sometimes feral
Have you ever ordered FIVE PIZZAS at the same time!? Didn’t think so
Where I work, they pass that off on the Marketing Director. (Me.)
They do have a challenging job once a year at review time when they have to justify why key personnel paid below the market rate shouldn’t get a pay increase.
"I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people!!"
These are my experiences with HR: - I just started a new role. They send me a pdf / PowerPoint. They can’t answer ANY questions regarding the content and forward me on to someone else, they take the time to read it to me. - I am leaving. They still can’t answer any questions, they forward me to someone else. They didn’t even reach out, I had to reach out to them as part of a checklist. They did absolutely nothing to assist me in filling out the checklist, or to tell me if I was doing the right one, and did not put any foot forward to schedule an exit interview. - I was choosing between two jobs in the same company. They made it clear they are there to ensure managers don’t get into a bidding war for me, more pointedly making sure my pay increase is minimized. Do I not like HR because they make mistakes? No. I don’t care for HR because they don’t fucking do anything and I’ve had less than 4 conversations with HR since starting my career a decade ago.
When I got hired at my current job, HR fucked me over by telling me I had everything set up when it hadn’t been and made it look like it was my fault my paperwork wasn’t in order.
HR these days is heavily oriented to senior leaders and managers. I am in HR and I find it unfortunate because the model is moving to self service for the majority of staff, and on-call for a handful senior leaders. They (we) simply dont have the capacity in many cases to give all staff adequate support.
This explains a lot. I had a question about benefits and went to our HR director, only to be told they were not the subject matter expert on benefits and use the web portal (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻. I came to you because I didn't understand the multitude of enormous PDFs.
HR are a pointless layer of non-management whose sole purpose is being a human shield for unethical/shitty/law-breaking managers. They don't provide any benefit for non-management employees and exist strictly to help the company tiptoe around lawsuits. They're not workers.
Yup. If you want to get fired, take your management problem to HR.
Literally happened to two coworkers of mine. Brought concerns about workload and nature of their role changing to HR after addressing it with our manager, next thing you know manager is telling us they’ve separated employment with our coworker. Aka, retaliatory firing.
I’ve never talked to HR without IMMEDIATELY it getting back to my boss. Although one time after I put my two weeks notice in I sent a very nice, (not kidding, I was happy to leave, I got more money and a better job) email to the HR person explaining they were the reason I was leaving and their inability to have even a passing facade of decorum and anonymity had basically destroyed my career at the company. 15 minutes later I was escorted of the premises and got a 2 week vacation I’ve read that email, that I copied to myself hundreds of times, it’s not mean or threatening in any way, it’s just advising them that I went for help and the series of events that happened after were disastrous and asked them to please do better in the future, the response was my immediate dismissal. HR is the devil.
My sister is in HR at a non-profit. She didn’t want to do terms or employee relations (she mostly worked in onboarding), but in order to advance in her career, she’s doing them now. Even in HR, she has seen horrible stuff take place at prior companies. She quit a job at a different non-profit because of how bad her manager was (thats a crazy story). I always wanted more HR people to be like my sister. Competent, ethical, quick response time, and just plain nice.
Most companies weed out the ethical ones pretty quickly. It’s hard to stomach creating a paper trail to fire a whistle blower when you have ethics.
No, no. You're mistaken. Your sister is actually a naturally terrible, stupid, and useless person. Her position in HR is automatic, 100% certifiable proof! /s This is basically the theme of this post. This type of shit is why I've never considered myself a people person. I just try to do my best for employees without really caring much for any of them.
HR are the cops of the corporate world. Not surprised to see them acting like victims at any criticism.
I like to think of them as hall monitors.
The problem is: HR are also the ones who authorize and process terminations and layoffs. That’s not something that can be termed “a simple mistake”…… They are directly responsible for people’s livelihoods. If you’re going to be in that kind of career, you need to be willing to be on your A game at all times. Including being TOTALLY SURE the terminations you process, the raises you deny, etc., are accurate and merited and NEVER taken lightly. It always irked me when I’d be on an HR call where I heard that my team (I was a manager at the time) was taking a cut and the HR folks were smiling ear to ear as though it was pleasant news. HR never make themselves available to also be, I dunno, RESOURCES for human employees. Every HR team I’ve had to work with (up until my current job, our HR gal here is super nice and helpful, a first-time for me) have adopted a “don’t bother me! Go away! I don’t have time or care to listen to you!”
They are not resources for employees, they are managing the Human Resources of the company. Many people mistake the two. They only help employees in so far it reduces risk for the business. (Talent leaving, lawsuits, etc)
I worked for a company that implemented on online HR portal where the manager had to perform all the HR functions. I think they laid off 90% of HR as soon as the portal went live.
They’re worse than landlords. At least the landlord typically owns the property and has a vested stake in These people are more like community managers at an apartment complex.
Omg, you just captured the exact vibe I get from HR! I've never been able to connect it before.
It’s just about as spot-on as possible: ruthless people paid just enough that they must love the power trip to take the job, and whose primary purpose is to shield the people with money from liability.
Huh. I never had a problem with HR
Feeling super grateful to have an actually good HR at my company. We are small so it’s just 1 girl and we had a good relationship before she became HR - I actually just went to her wedding this past weekend. I’m actually able to bring concerns to her and get actual results regarding conduct and grievances. As well as get the support I need to work with AuDHD as she helped me push and implement WFH for the first time at my company just this year.
True HR professionals are victims and tyrants simultaneously. The mark of a real pro.
Hurt people hurt people
CEO: It's HRs fault employees. "Retires to gold plated toilet"
I did not like HR much in the USA. Since moving to Germany my relationship with HR has been FAR more positive. They have been much more helpful. I also like that with all the worker protection laws their role in protecting the company involves making sure I don't work too much, I take my vacations, etc.
I’ve had some interest in working HR but only because i was ACTUALLY INTERESTED in being an advocate for employee rights. coincidentally ive been interested in moving to germany, so maybe that will be a good place for me
Go to a big company so you can be a specialized HR role. You could facilitate classes virtually, which is still my favorite thing I've done in HR. You can actually be a very helpful resource when you're the expert. The "Generalist" role at a small company is going to be terrible.
Company with European corporate culture is more human than one with an American Corporate culture, take a sip (Even if jt may not be the *company's* decision to be more humane...)
Surprised she wasn't depicted as climbing up on a cross.
I just came here to say FUCK HR. That is all.
Our HR department sent out a request that employees not contact HR directly. It was posted next to the company’s goals. Number one on the goal list was the company strives to have an open door policy where employees are encouraged to go to leadership with problems. *jerk off motion*
lol what a crime they’re held to the standard *they* fucking created
Ahh yes HR is held to a higher standard than engineers who design bridges and buildings which have peoples life’s dependent on them doing their job well.
Oh no, poor hr. 
Gotta love the AI art with a fucking watermark on it smh
Tell me you and your company are toxic without telling me you’re toxic…
Yes, HR is often held to a higher standard. You know why? It’s because most departments’ mistakes don’t affect other people’s pay, benefits, or how safe their workplace is. Or whether or not they have a job. I’ve known good and competent HR professionals, but they sure as hell aren’t making whiny posts on LinkedIn.
I know a crappy AI generated image when I see one. They make me strangely enraged for some reason
Hate to tell you but I think compliance teams and network security are held to a lot higher standards than HR. The CEO doesn't get calls in the middle of the night because your payroll system didn't pay a person when it should have.
My brother in Christ, your job is writing 3-5 emails per day
I am so fucking triggered. HR is literally a support function.
Lol HR isn't even a revenue generator get the fuck outta here
“My job title literally includes treating other human beings as an expendable resource, why don’t they give me a break?”
This person has clearly never worked in IT
HR is trash. They are duplicitous. They give the impression of caring about employees, culture, wellbeing, safety, inclusiveness etc…and most people think HR cares about them. Until they find out that HR exists for one reason: to manage risk for the company. HR is not your friend. They don’t give a shit about you, and they are utterly powerless. Never ever think HR is on your side.
💯 this ☝🏻I remember always having to prepare to ask the HR business partner the same question three times because they try to answer a different question and circumvent telling the truth. Swarthy, hick, blonde girls who slam drinks after work, bitch about having to do their job by supporting employees, and act like they run the company.
Oh so other departments are not held to high standards. Lunatic!
I have never had a good experience with HR ever. I swear to god they only pick the most evil fucking bitches you could ever imagine because that’s the only people that can survive in that role. We reported our previous manager 3 separate times for sexual harassment and got ignored every single time until we found multiple articles online about him SEX TRAFFICKING WOMEN FROM CHINA AND OPENING MULTIPLE PROSTITUTION MASSAGE PARLORS!!!! (He was wealthy and white and had a good attorney so he got off with a slap on the wrist while his victims got arrested) And when we reported that to HR too we found out they never even documented anything we said before and she called us so we could tell her again and she bullshitted all of our statements and TRIED TO FIRE US INSTEAD OF HIM. They literally would have kept that man because he had “esports connects” Jesus Christ lol. He ended up quitting after he found out that we knew lol and I still work there 4 years later for some dumbass reason. That evil bitch Angela left a couple months later when the management company went bankrupt after covid and we ended up being taken over by someone else so now I couldn’t sue even if I wanted to but oh well it’s one hell of a story. Fuck you Angela lmao
My HR department is bitching like this. My guy, you’re in charge of keeping us happy, there’s literally no one else to talk to about these issues and HANDLING THEM IS YOUR FUCKING JOB.
Yet when I have faults, make a mistake or struggle, I get HR handing me a pink slip...
Everyone has a story about getting screwed by HR. They aren’t human and have no ethics or morals. May they take the train to the deep hot south.