How much do you trust the Human Resources Department of your company?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspired by another HR themed thread in IMHO, and by a personal experience I had a few years back.
A company or so ago, I decided to report some hinky goings on by my immediate supervisor to the HR Dept. of my company. After being assured that everything was to be held in strict confidence I reported, with documentation, the hinkiness being perpetrated. The HR person I talked to seemed very interested in the story and the evidence, and told me to wait in her office while she copied it off elsewhere. While she was out I felt the need to visit the little boy’s room, so I slipped out and, on the way I passed a room that contained the HR person, the evidence…and my immediate supervisor. Getting a little closer for listen in, I head them talking about what I had just discussed with HR, then the HR person said to my supervisor, “I’ve got to get back-Want to finish this talk at lunch? My treat!”

I hit the can, go back to her office, and say goodbye. Two days later the supervisor calls me in and tells me about the horrible job I’m doing and how my further employment is in danger, although this was the first time I had been called into the office since I had been hired five years before. I did a little quiet checking after that and found out that HR was the LAST place to go with a complaint unless you already had a new job lined up.

So, how much do you trust the HR Dept.(or their equivalent) of your company?

2

HR often sells themselves as the employees’ advocate. But don’t be fooled. Their top priority is to be an advocate for the company.

I’ve known people getting screwed by HR.

3

Zero.

4

I can’t judge my current company yet, but I’ve never trusted HR at any company once I got older than my early 20s.

I learned quickly that they’re mostly useless. One of my first days at a new job right after college, a bunch of us were sitting around the break room talking the usual stuff (places to eat lunch, bars with happy hour specials and crazy customers) All of a sudden someone else joins the table and proceeds to opine on how he finds anal sex between men to be disgusting and other homophobic rants.

Since he was the top salesperson for the company, HR did nothing and he ended up getting promoted, so at least he was out of the office I worked at!

5

I wouldn’t trust them to sit on a toilet seat properly.

Regard them as the GM’s personal assistant and you’ll be closer to how they (generically) treat matters that you might consider to involve confidentiality.

6

HR can be trustworthy if, and only if, you’re bringing them a problem that is a major liability for the company/agency and you have excellent proof of that problem. HR, at least intelligently run departments, will often move heaven and earth to help you if it will shield your employer from increased legal exposure.

In all other cases they are not completely trustworthy. They might be helpful, they might not be, but it can never be assumed and they should be approached with all due caution. If it is easier to scapegoat you many will without blinking an eye. I knew a fellow who thought he was friends with the head of an HR department - right up until he got terminated after following their private advice and believing their private assurances that he would be just fine.

7

I have gone to HR with issues like “my zip code changed, and i got a letter from the health insurer saying that i am no longer in their covered area, and they are cancelling my coverage”. HR fixed that problem. I also went to HR to ask about how to handle benefit/disability issues related to having my first child.

I would not go to HR if my boss was engaged in something hinky.

8

My works HR department banned people from watching Maury in the lunch room in the morning because someone else complained about the “Offensive stereotypes” in the show. We immediately started watching Jerry Springer instead and no one has complained since.

I personally had another employee tell me he was going to report me to HR because somebody in an isolated area legitimately asked me how a Fleshlight worked and I explained it to them and the person who sitting there the entire time while others also talked openly about sex acts apparently found my description the most offensive. But ever since they claimed they reported it a decade later no management has ever told me anything yet.

9

I trust mine but then I work in it so maybe I’m a bit biased. I trust them to follow policy, the law, and to maintain ethical standards while doing their jobs. At the very least, none of my coworkers are going to secretly invite a supervisor to come speak with them in one room while interviewing one of their subordinates in another room. That sounds like a bad sitcom where someone brings two dates to the restaurant at once.

Yeah, like every other department in the company, HR exists to support the company so that’s what our top priority is. Of course supporting the company might mean recommending a manager get some coaching on how to manage, a termination for sexual harassment, or that maybe you need to actually interview people for the position rather than just giving the job to someone you used to work with a few years ago.

HR doesn’t drive company culture nor does it run the show. Ultimately it was management who was responsible for a culture that ignored inappropriate behavior and promoted guys like him. The current situation over at Activision-Blizzard is the result of the attitudes starting at the very top with their CEO Bobby Kotick and going down from there.

Toilets are complicated and most of HR has a tenuous grasp of the technical side of things.

It’s best to avoid eye contact because we interpret it as a challenge to our authority. We’re also easily spooked so no sudden movements or loud noises please. Is anyone at work completely trustworthy? Because I feel like the above quote could apply to managers, employees, and pretty much anybody in a work environment. I know HR is often scapegoated by managers: HR won’t let me give you a raise, HR is driving this unpopular policy, HR won’t let you transfer, etc., etc.

Being in HR is largely a thankless job and most employees don’t even think about us outside of open enrollment, which is fine. Most of the complaints in this thread have been about employee relations and we do more than that. While I deal with ER issues on occasion, I’m mainly working behind the scenes in compliance, immigration, and contracts so I mainly work with directly with managers. When I’m working with employees I’m typically answering @puzzlegal questions about changing zip codes, policy information, and benefits.

You guys should see some of the bullshit that comes to my desk from both management and employees.

10

I often see threads such as these on the Dope, and it always surprises me that the question is always about trust - are they on my side, or the company’s. It seems terribly naive.

HR are in the business of resource management. That’s it. They have a job to do within the company, for the good of the company, just like every other department. They’re not employed to be your personal saviour - that’s what unions are supposed to be for. If there’s layoffs, they’ll be the ones handling it. If there’s a dispute between an employee and their boss, they’ll be talking to the company’s employment lawyers - not yours. What do you expect?!

They’re not bad people out to do you harm, they’re just doing the bidding of the company, just like you. It just happens that their role may impact yours.

11

If your company told you that your job was to lie to your employees, would that be o.k. with you? We did not just assume that there would be confidentiality if we reported problems-it was told to us that this was so in orientation, on posters in breakrooms and in newsletters.

12

Don’t.
Just don’t.
If there is an issue, step one should be a lawyer.

13

I think in the UK it’s still the case that there are different flavors of HR.
Some are the more US-style; where their job seems entirely about making sure employees toe the line and don’t embarrass the company. But many are still equally or more about looking after staff well-being and definitely respond to things like e.g. sexual harassment very seriously.

It’s usually possible to tell the difference in the early stages, as a new starter. How keen are they to let you know your entitlements? Do they respond to your initial queries as you settle in?

14

That’s a problem with either your your employer or your employer’s HR people. I have never been told that anything I reported to HR * would be confidential and I know that even if they did promise confidentiality and tried to keep my name out of things, that’s not always possible. I mean, if I complain that someone is sexually harassing me, if it’s true, the harasser is probably going to have a pretty good idea of who the accuser is even if HR doesn’t tell them.

* or the other offices I might report problems to

15

I’ve also worked with HR to hire new employees. They are the experts in what documents i need to fill out to legally hire someone, for instance. The internal recruiters I’ve worked with were also part of HR. They also administer some of our “development programs”, which most of the people i work with come up through. Oh, and they’ve been promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in ways that i think are helpful.

I’ve dealt with completely incompetent HR departments, and ones that were basically helpful. I don’t really think of them as where to go if i witness misconduct. I admit, we get annual training about how we are supposed to contact a confidential group (presumably within HR) if we witness certain types of misconduct, and i always answer the quiz saying i would, but always think, “naw, in real life, that would be too risky. I don’t think I’d do that.”

16

We typically tell people that we’ll keep the meeting confidential insofar as we can. i.e. We’re not going to run to @Czarcasm’s boss and say, “This is what Czarcasm has said about you.” Depending on what was reported during the meeting, we’ll probably start an investigation by interviewing other members of Czarcasm’s team. I’ll probably schedule another meeting with Czarcasm just so his supervisor doesn’t start to wonder why everyone on his team except Czar is being interviewed.

Of course I’m not doing this all out of the goodness of my heart. Part of the reason I’m doing this is to mitigate the risk of retaliation against Czarcasm because that’s illegal as hell and can get the company into some hot water. But I’m also doing it so I can protect the integrity of the investigation and that I don’t send a message to employee’s that talking to HR will land you in hot water. Czarcasm ran into a bad HR department, but, I’ll wager it was a problem that ran deeper than HR.

I wouldn’t. And if I worked for a company that ignored harassment and otherwise asked me to engage in illegal and/or unethical behavior I’d start looking for a new job.

17

Every job has potential for a bad environment. I’m an actuary. I’m supposed to come up an honest reserve estimate for management and regulatory purposes. I once interviewed for a job where the hiring manager told me that “we would make sure we show a nice profit so we get a good bonus”. I ran from that job.

18

I’ve only dealt with HR remotely through emails and only to ask questions about things like “I’ve been locked out of website X; can you reset my password?” If not, I’ve been given the phone number for who can.

19

I’ve worked with HR quite a bit. They’ve been great at helping me recruit, and at Bell Labs I was on a committee trying to improve the performance review process, and they were great there also.
But it depends on company culture. I’ve been to meetings reviewing employee survey results and let’s say the HR people were not exactly sympathetic about complaints.
After my company which more or less cared about employees got bought by one that didn’t, I talked to an HR person who came over, and she told me the craziness of the new HR system for recruiting. Given that we were always getting in trouble with the government for ripping them off, let’s say I never expected a high level of ethics being driven from the top.

20

Oh, I wouldn’t argue otherwise and I don’t mean to make out HR as automatically a hive of villainy :slight_smile: . I perhaps worded my comments a bit more strongly than I intended. My last head of employee relations was supportive and generally very sympathetic to the issues employees were facing. The current head of ER is very, very smart and while a little less overtly sympathetic than her predecessor is hardly a monster. Their mutual predecessor on the other hand was a bit of a snake :wink: .

It’s just that you have to cognizant of what their job is and it is very clear that whatever their personal views are they are there to represent management. Which is absolutely fine when management is not being abusive. When they are however (and just what qualifies as abusive is of course highly subjective), issues can arise. And I do feel for the HR people caught in the middle.

I don’t think HR is to be avoided at all costs, but just that one should have their eyes open about what their role is, what the culture of your employment is like and whether they are likely to be helpful or not in your particular situation. Sadly IMHO being honest and forthcoming about your issues with HR is NOT always the best policy.