In two of my management jobs, I walked into a shitstorm of HR-worker confrontation issues that had to be resolved quickly. My first move in both cases was to tell my employees that they were NOT to go to HR unless it was a complaint about me, and even then to bring such issues to me first. In other words, I made myself the liaison between my employees and HR. By doing that I was able to calm things down that had been ongoing issues for some time and at the same time establish trust on both sides.
I always just used HR as I would any other tool. If I was unsure about an employee issue or a hiring issue, they were the resource for correct company policy. So I would say that (ideally) a good HR serves everybody, but unless you’re filing a formal grievance, it’s best to let your manager (or perhaps your attorney) deal directly with them.
Exactly. A senior executive (or a good “producer” on a trading floor) won’t get fired. The lower-ranking employee, however, will find her- or himself the object of very intensive scrutiny. Every one-minute lateness will be documented. There won’t be any more good performance reviews. Deadlines will become moving goalposts, and the employee will never be able to meet them. And so on and so on.
The HR person at my last job was truly hated. Any number of employees left the firm specifically because of her. She had a habit of calling up her counterparts at other firms and, “off the record,” bad-mouthing anyone who left. It got to the point where anyone who left the firm would absolutely refuse to disclose where they were going. She would often find out, though, and then the phone call would get made.
It was a despicable woman just like the one you described that got me into this line of work in the first place. I started my working life in training, which is affiliated with HR, but not usually a part of it. My office was next to the HR manager’s. You had to be incredibly careful about anything you said or did in her sight or hearing. She would record it and find a way to use it against you. Although married, she was having a very open affair with the CEO (also married), so there wasn’t a prayer of making a move against her. You could always tell when it was the day someone was going to be fired. She would come in early, walk out into the plant and pick up 3 or 4 cardboard boxes, which she would leave outside the door of the affected employee’s office. Everyone saw. Everyone knew. She would be euphoric throughout the day, giggling on the phone, laughing and joking with everyone in the hallway. It was clear she was in her element. Firings always took place about 3 in the afternoon, so it would all get serious for about a half hour or so, then once the deed was done, it would be party central in her office. Her ‘amour’ would usually join her, they’d close the door and laugh it up loud enough you could hear it in the hallway.
The whole situation was so distasteful to me that I had a sit down talk with my husband, telling him I wanted to get my MBA with an HR emphasis. I wanted to go into HR, because I was convinced there was a way to do this job properly. So I left that job and went back to school. And I’ve never looked back.
My less admirable side felt gleeful when I heard that woman had been fired herself shortly after I left. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving soul.
Is this always true? (I am well aware of the costs of retraining and hiring, since I’m deep into that part of things.) However I’ve worked at places with a compensation policy that is almost guaranteed to lead to lower retention. It is the Deming-like philosophy of reward the top 20% and screw the rest. I’d hope that our HR people don’t get dinged by losses resulting from policies set by the top. Though it wouldn’t surprise me.
When you talk about your profession, what makes you think the way it is run at your company is the way it is run at any other company, let alone most companies?
Which also works against the employee who is unhappy, and wants to leave, but HR instead transfers that person to another department or handles him/her in some way to stay with the company so the metrics don’t show a lower retention. This would especially come into play during times when the economy is doing great and the labor pool is small. This is really no different than the head hunters who place an employee with a client company, and then get a call from that employee in 4 months saying they don’t like working there and want you to find them another job. My experience has been that the head hunters tell those people regardless of the market condition that they have nothing on the horizon and better stay where they are. Why would a head hunter say this, because their contract could be to place someone who will stay there at least six months or that they don’t want to show the people who accepted the low-ball salaries with great promises don’t stick around if they come from a particular head hunting firm.
I’m not saying people who work in HR are evil. The position they are put in, forces them to work entirely in the best interests of upper management and if they don’t comply with this, they can find themselves marginalized or out of a job.
I was told, that Deming said there was no reason to fire an employee that after 5 years, they will see that they don’t find into the culture and leave on their own. I was told this second-hand by someone who went to a Deming seminar/lecture. Anyone else hear this? Is it even correctly attributed to Deming?
Yeah, this is always true, in my experience. The last firm I worked at was a hellhole, and the HR department absolutely could not be trusted. Nobody would ever talk to them unless absolutely necessary, and even then, you knew whatever you talked about would be all over the company in a day or two.
I really like the firm I work at now. There are lots and lots of good things about it, and I have a great manager. But the HR department is the same. Well, it’s not actually malevolent, like the last place, but they do love their gossip.
I had to take some leave last year for a family situation. I was absolutely entitled to the leave and wasn’t asking for any favors or special treatment, and the HR department was quite helpful with insurance and forms and the like. I was surprised, however (although I shouldn’t have been), to find out that when I returned, everyone knew why I’d been out.
All employees, including HR staff, should be cognizant of the fact that that HR is a cost. It does not directly contribute to profits, in that they create no product or service.
The HR function is internal, and takes away from profit. It’s a necessary function, but expendable. It can be expanded, contracted or outsourced, based on corporate bottom line.
My own observations are that HR emplpyees (what we used to call “Personnel”)are often operating from fear of losing their own jobs.
Your first paragraph is largely correct. There are times that we, as HR pros, do have to say no to management, however. Most of the time this is based on employment legalities of which they are unaware. Occasionally it’s based on the employment market. For example, if unemployment is low and wages very competitive, if you want to retain a quality workforce, you can’t choose that time to reduce wages or fail to pay the market rate. Of course we are not the CEO and can be overruled, but if I, at least, am told to act illegally, I would have no choice but to quit.
In your second paragraph you mention an employee advocate. I’m familiar with an employee spokesman or ombudsman or union rep from my years working in union shops. Speaking for myself, I like having someone like that available. I would much rather sit down one-on-one and negotiate with an ombudsman that I would want to face a disgruntled and unhappy group who were waving the threat of a union over my head. I realize most employers hate the very idea of unions, but in some cases, they can actually make a business run more smoothly. If you ever take a good look at some of the German unions, they have come to work very well with their business ownership. We, in the US, would do well to observe and possibly adopt some of what they do.
If you are trying to force a union into an uncooperative business, there are bound to be some casualties. It’s as close as commerce gets to a war. But once the deed is done and the union is in the door, generally things settle down and business goes on pretty much as usual.
It often isn’t. And that’s regrettable. I think in any profession there is a disconnect between theory and practice, and that’s as surely true in HR as anywhere else. At one time, the job was very much as someone described above - hire, fire, and keep the company out of legal hot water. But in the last 10 years in particular, there has been a real push to elevate the profession. People being hired for HR management positions now are more likely to be better educated and often have MBAs or other more business-oriented degrees (previously, if you had a degree, it was more likely to be in a social science like psychology). HR metrics has come light years from where it was in the '90s. We have better data and we are more equipped to know what to do with it.
When I started in HR in 1985, HR was rarely included in strategy and planning meetings. You got brought in when the decisions were already made and you were tasked to execute them. Now we are contributors from the get go. Human beings, sadly, are still a company’s costliest resources, hardest to handle and easiest to get rid of, but that is beginning to change.
Granted, a lot of these changes are still limited to ‘best practices’ companies and the trickle down to the rest of the country may take some time. But it’s coming.
You’ve made some valid points. HR isn’t an operations function. We don’t make widgets, we don’t ship widgets, heck, we don’t even invoice for widgets. But, done right, we can provide the companion service by eliminating unnecessary costs. My career has been in manufacturing of one type or another, so I get it. When I need to validate my services, I show costs of sourcing, costs of retraining, costs in productivity due to lack of speed and accuracy with new employees versus what it costs to have your workforce fully trained and at top productivity. New employees and employees in various stages of training drag down your line, both in time and in quality of product. Experienced, fully trained workers rarely do.
Of course if we aren’t efficient about hiring, we don’t get the right hiring fit, and we don’t streamline our own processes, it may cost more to have us than we save. And yup, that’s on us to ensure it doesn’t happen. If you aren’t saving more than you cost, you deserve to worry about your job. If you are saving more than you cost, no worries at all.
I’ve gotten my Deming information second-hand, but I’ve never heard this. He does consider exceptional people on the bottom though. So I can believe it is part of his system.
However, in my experience if you give a low performer a 0% raise even when most people are getting whoppers, he doesn’t get the message. Someone who knows he is incompetent is so happy just to have a job that he is unlikely to leave. Someone who is truly a bad match, instead of just bad, will.
You’d think after getting a zero raise without a good excuse for it, and finding out others are getting raises that would cause an employee to leave the company.
But there are also other factors which drive people to stay in a job even with zero raises. Maybe their family doesn’t want to relocate, or they would have to take a pay cut to work elsewhere in the same town. Some are too lazy to want to learn a new company’s operations.
I can’t think it’s a good idea to continue to give someone a zero raise without a good reason, and expect them to look forward to coming to work each day.
One other comment, if I may. The company’s Policies and Procedures manual is not just something that an employee should shove into a drawer and forget. Knowing the information in that book, and referring to it whenever there is a question about what you are about to do, can mean the difference between you having a job tomorrow or why you have that giant boot print on your ass. It’s the hammer that HR uses to enforce company policy; if you don’t want to be a nail, learn what’s in it.
Oh, there were good reasons for the zero raise all right.
We were in a location without a lot of companies someone could move to. But we weren’t expecting he’d be happy to come to work every day. Except that he probably was happy to have some work to come to.
The person who is aggressive and wants promotions and recognitions will react far differently from the person who is just happy to have a job.
Present company excluded, of course!
