Many times on this message board when people have brought up problems in the workplace, a common response would be “Contact HR. That’s what they are there for.” But when the problem in the workplace is with management, is HR always the right place to go? Are there any laws in place stating that HR departments can’t work hand-in-hand with management against employees? Are there any assurances of privacy when you talk to your HR department? I know that, when I worked for an unnamed(but very large) security firm many years ago the Head of HR and my immediate supervisor were besties, and that people that complained about the supe to HR were almost immediately called in for disciplinary action.
HR’s mission is to protect the company first, not the employees’ interests. Sometimes this overlaps, and what is best for the company is best for the employee.
Precisely what I was going to say.
I wish I had a definitive answer for you, but I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from 20 years in HR.
First and foremost, HR employees are in the service of the company. Loyalty goes to the guy who signs the paycheck. That being said, a GOOD HR person views themself as a liaison between the employee and the company and attempts to stay objective. Sadly, a lot of people aren’t in HR for the right reasons. I know. I’ve worked with and for several of that type.
I do have a couple of rules when it comes to an employee coming to me with a concern about a supervisor or a co-worker:
1 - Unless you’ve just planted a bomb in the facility and I need to get the employees evacuated while the police come and pick you up for terrorist activity, I will respect your request for privacy. I’ve taken heat from upper management numerous times for that, but if I do not appear trustworthy to the employees, no one will ever come to me with issues. And if ee’s don’t come to me with issues, I have no ability keep my finger on the pulse of the grapevine and the unofficial company culture. And that is a part of my job. If I’m the last person to know about something, I can never be pre-emptive or hope to head problems off before they start.
2 - I don’t make bffs in my workplace. I’m cordial to everyone and a lot of people like me. I’ve worked hard to be accessible. Occasionally I’ll stop by an off-site birthday party and once a month I go to lunch with an employee - always a different one, and no more than once a year with any one person. Because I don’t have any besties here, I find it easier to be objective and my employees find it more comfortable to talk to me about their supervisors.
3 -My word is my bond. If I tell you I will get back to you, I do. If I tell you I’ll investigate something for you, I will do it and show you the results. And equally, if I can’t help you, or there is another person or source who can better help you, I’ll refer you. I’ve worked hard to develop credibility, and am happy to say I have largely achieved it.
If you don’t have an HR person like me, I’d be very wary of confiding anything sensitive to them. Some view this type or work as a stepping stone and will sell you out to management in a New York minute. If your supervisor and your HR are in cahoots, I’d suggest you take your problem to your EAP (Employee Assistance PRogram), if you have one. The provider’s contract with your company prevents them from disclosing the name of the complainant to the company’s management. They can only speak about the problem. And they are very good about doing so. They will take the issue to management and treat it as a general complaint, so that there is no clue as to who is the complainant. If they can’t help you, they will tell you, and they will also refer you to the appropriate third party. But they are definitely a good place to start.
If it’s a truly serious problem and you feel that legalities may have been violated, you can usually get an exploratory appointment with an employment attorney for free. Any subsequent services they render will cost you, but the first sit-down to discover whether or not you have a claim worthy of pursuing is generally at no cost.
I hope this will shed a little light for you.
You have definitely shown me that, of all the companies I have worked for, none have been the one you work for.
No and no. (Naturally, whether one is in private industry and whether one belongs to a union may change the calculus here and there.)
Stillowned is (evidently) an exception to the general rule. 
It depends on what you mean by Management. The HR department works for the company as a whole. If a senior executive is sexually harassing his subordinates, then it’s in the company’s interest to fire the executive.
That said, the higher in rank an individual is, the greater the tendency will be to see their interests and the company’s interests as one and the same.
They serve the people who view humans as resources. That’s fine sometimes, but not always. They work for the same company you do. Their boss is your boss. Their job is to make the company look good. So ask yourself before you go to HR: “Will solving my problem make the company look good?” If the answer is “no”, talk to someone else. So, whistle blowing, outing a VP’s incompetence, etc, HR probably won’t resolve to your satisfaction.
I don’t even know what this means. If there is a layoff, say, HR is going to be involved setting things up. Does that count as working with management against employees? Does running a performance review system where some people are going to get low ratings?
The places I’ve been have had various hotlines for reporting things, which are said to have an assurance of privacy. (Legally, I don’t know.)
But doing something like this:
is seldom going to be a good idea.
I’ve never had an issue with HR in 35 years of working. And I’ve had a fair amount of interaction.
The HR department in a company is no different from the IT department, or the Accounting department, they ALL work for the CEO. Having said that, if you have a real problem at work, the best thing to do is consult with an attorney that specializes in employment law to advise you. Of course, this depends on the situation, but the last thing to do if you have a problem at work with management, is to go to HR and open your heart up to them about your problems. Because HR then talks to your supervisor and tells him or her exactly what the conversation was about. There was a documentary or news show, I don’t remember the name, but they interviewed people who worked in HR. The one fellow revealed that he is not the employee’s confidant, that he does exactly as I described and shares all conversations and complaints with your supervisor.
The real function of HR beyond protecting the company, is to manage the process of hiring and firing employees. Making sure records to kept, and benefits are explained to employees and to communication those changes to the employees.
When I’ve had issues working in a large company, I didn’t go to HR to talk to anyone there. Instead I would speak to a trusted and that’s the key word, trusted peer to my supervisor for advice and to help out. That has always worked out to my benefit doing that.
People who treat HR like they are their union representative to look out for their best interests and sadly mistaken. In fact, no company manual I’ve ever seen describes HR as being your advocate. Furthermore, just because HR contacts and handles the process of a job offer, they are not in the decision making and selection process at all. In that regard, they are no different than procurement working with a supplier ordering a part and arranging for the vendor to be paid.
The only times to contract HR which are to the employee’s benefit is to discuss company benefits, and other processes they facilitate.
When applying for a job, the best thing to do, is by-pass HR the best you can and deal directly with the hiring manager. It is the hiring manager that tells HR, “Make this person an offer”.
HR’s job is the same as everyone else’s- to make their boss look good.
This means keeping the company out of the newspapers and making sure nobody gets sued. It also means running standard processes (hiring, training, etc.) efficiently and implementing a few cool sounding programs (lunch time yoga!) that the boss can brag about at staff meetings.
When it comes to disputes, their goal is to make sure the problem doesn’t rise to the level where it gets the boss’s attention. Bosses generally don’t want to be bothered with the mundane details of individual teams- kind of how when you buy something at the store, you aren’t going to want to hear about the store clerk’s random issues. You just want the services done with no fuss.
So what does it take to make sure disputed don’t rise to the point where the boss is going to care? Depends. But it usually works out worse for the little guy (who is just plain easier to move or ignore without the boss caring), and “management is incompetent” probably isn’t going to go over well.
This is really the case- it’s a department that amalgamates a bunch of inward-facing employee-oriented functions- hiring/firing, benefits, managing various employee-centric policies and procedures (hiring/firing, sexual harassment, time off, etc…).
They ARE much like IT or Payroll in that they do provide a service to the employees for things like benefits information and advocacy, and they’re usually the arbiter of the policies and procedures that they manage (i.e. sexual harassment claims will usually be adjudicated by HR and higher management).
They are NOT general purpose advocates, and the most they do on your behalf in most cases is make sure everyone followed the letter of the law so that the company can’t be sued if you’re fired or sanctioned for violating some policy or other. They’re certainly not going to go to bat for you if your manager doesn’t like you and railroads you out of the company. They’re much more likely in that case to make sure he crosses all his Ts and dots his Is as he persecutes you, so that you can’t sue once he runs you out.
Thank you for saying it first.
Where I work the concept of confidentiality isn’t part of the HR departments universe. I put in my resignation for next month and before my shift started 3 of the managers and 5 coworkers knew about it.
The operating theory of our HR is “if I smile and bat my eyelashes enough you will go away”. It must work; of the 300 of us who worked here Thanksgiving only about 20 of us are left. And the number is shrinking more.
One important aspect of HR is determining executive pay. Especially the CEO, etc. When raise time is coming around, HR does a “survey” and surprise, surprise finds that comparable CEOs make huge amounts of money and that the CEO deserves a really gigantic raise, plus bonuses, etc.
This makes the CEO quite friendly towards HR, so HR gets bigger, more power, etc… It’s a win-win. Except for everyone else.
In every workplace, there is a constant tug-of-war between the employees and the management whose first job is to look out for the interests of the owners of the company. Most of the time, it is subtle and goes unnoticed. The HR department is part of that structure. It will try to resolve problems which threaten the functioning of the workplace and will try to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes IF POSSIBLE without compromising the interests of the owners of the company. Under no circumstances, will HR ever represent the interests of the employee unless they also coincide with the interests of the company for profitability, workplace harmony, and positive PR.
Ideally, employees should choose spokespersons from among them to help them deal with job related problems. These would naturally be the most knowledgeable, articulate, and fair-minded of the group. This structure is especially helpful to those people who lack confidence, are inarticulate, or fearful of expressing themselves. Employers don’t like this idea and in fact will punish anyone who advocates it. They are seen as “union organizers” or “troublemakers” who are trying to undermine the interests of the company, but in fact, actually promote a workplace structure which is more harmonious for all concerned.
All good points, but often it is hard to bypass HR, and then their idiosyncrasies come into play- where they often reject excellent candidates for trivial and even bogus reasons.
One thing to remember is that HR doesnt like problems. Thus if you, as a line employee complain about a senior employee/manager, you will likely get the boot- but of course for other reasons. If, however, that senior employee/manager has a history, he will get the boot- but you will be remembered not as a hero, but as a problem causer, which will hurt your promotion chances, etc.
It’s true that whistleblowers are protected, but it’s so easy to get rid of you legitimately.
Who does the Human Resources Department serve?
You mean, besides Satan? 
Ouch. We HR folks clearly have some self-policing to do (not that I didn’t know that). I am taking note of some of the low points you are mentioning in your posts (don’t worry, no screen names or sources will be attached), to use for purposes of starting a conversation in our professional association’s next professional ethics forum. And yes, we actually do have such things.
I do want to mention one thing about this profession. Believe it or not, we are not evaluated on how many people we fire. In fact, we’re dinged for it unless it’s a corporate mandated layoff. The costs of rehiring and retraining people for the same job on a regular basis are staggering. And that’s not even considering the loss in productivity by always having people in training. My mission statement for lack of a better phrase is to effect good hires. By good hires, I mean people who will thrive in the job, add value to the company, and stick around. When an employee bombs out, for whatever reason, most of us are expected to take some responsibility for that. We have tons of evaluative tools at our fingertips, and after you’ve been at this a while, your instincts are pretty on point when it comes to who the people you interview really are. Sure, sometimes there are going to be personality conflicts with a supervisor. It happens. And in most cases, the supervisor is of greater value to the company than his subordinate. But not always. And it’s never a given.
When it comes time for my review and I have a sit-down with the VP, HR, the first thing he asks about is my retention rate. If the turnover rate is greater than 2%, I had better have some metrics showing that it’s due to market factors, or I have to justify my hiring performance. So yup, it really does behoove us to keep you on board once we hire you.