Are All HR Departments Useless?

[Phoenix86]

Let me get you a new sarcasm meter...

Gonna have to pass out a lot them, I didn't pick it up either and was shaking my head.

 

[Phoenix86]

I'll give you that for small companies, which I mentioned earlier in my comment about a "one man HR shop." That's not a true reflection of the function.

It doesn't have to be one man shops, I have seen plenty of 5-8 person departments do the same.

You're simply describing a larger HR department with additional functions. Slash your budget and you're performing your skeleton functions. Preventing the employees from harming the company.

The majority of my team's time...

Ahh, got it, you're an HR manager.

 

[Phoenix86]

No. The purpose of a legal department is to win cases or make them go away.

The purpose of HR is to keep them from happening to begin with. But most employees dont know that.

This man gets it.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I once worked at a place that did exactly the same thing (tiered goals) PLUS anonymous peer performance reviews. The process was so cumbersome and hated that it was typical for the system not to be ready for you to enter your own goals for the year until May. So you'd load up your yearly goals with things you already completed in January through May. Wow! How great am I for hitting all my goals for the year!

The system had a wonderful feature where you could be entering information and goals for a half-hour and then when you hit Save it would say your session timed out. So you taught yourself to hit Save after every sentence so you didn't get on a roll and forget how long you've been typing.

The poor people who worked in a staff position would be going crazy trying to figure out (for example) how they could do something in a job that processes invoices which supports the big boss' goal of reducing the cost of purchased items by 8%.

At that place, the head of HR once launched an effort to evaluate new options for company health insurance and had a staffer line up visits by 4 insurers over a couple of weeks. HR guy would routinely show up an hour late for these meetings while the rest of the staff would have to explain to the insurers they had no idea what the meeting agenda was supposed to be because HR guy never told them, so there was no point in starting the meeting without him. The staffers would remind him the day before of an upcoming insurer visit and what time it was, didn't matter. He was going to make everyone wait to prove the world revolved around him.

This place had "upward" feedback too -- where you could review your manager. Of course, it was NOT anonymous and the managers were vindictive if you said anything negative. I refused to participate. It's like someone said earlier -- HR folks were typically the business majors who really weren't capable of doing anything else, so they put them all in the same department.

This was also the place that had a large communications department -- communications idiots are maybe a half step above HR idiots. These were the guys who, when we were going to have an all-company meeting, wanted me to go to the top of a parking garage with a group of other people (we all were "celebrating" our 5-year work anniversaries) and have us all jump out of a van to the tune of the A-Team theme song. They wanted to show this video at the meeting. I didn't even bother to show up -- I was swamped and I really resented that they paid worthless buffoons to do stupid stuff like that when I was stressed and barely keeping my head above water. They finally cornered me in a stairwell one day and I told them I was at my desk working and they could film me there if they wanted, but I wasn't reading a script or doing anything besides working.

 

[zCypher]

Are All HR Departments Useless?

Yes.

 

[OutHouse]

wanted me to go to the top of a parking garage with a group of other people (we all were "celebrating" our 5-year work anniversaries) and have us all jump out of a van to the tune of the A-Team theme song.

Holy shit that's over the top.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Holy shit that's over the top.

Yeah, I guess just calling off someone's name and giving him/her a plaque wasn't as much "fun" and they decided it would be more fun to humiliate employees and give the deadweight with no real skills something to do. Seriously, communications people are probably the only ones I have even less respect for than HR people and that speaks volumes given my opinion of HR.

The place was just not a good cultural fit for me and I am sure the lightweights there (which includes most of the execs) thought I had a "bad attitude" or something because of things like that and my utter hatred of the bazillion "team-building" events and other mindless social BS. I was there to do a job, not pretend to be Hannibal Smith, Face, Murdock, or B.A. Baracus.

 

[Geekbabe]

I have stage IV cancer and am still employed. HR and my manager have been most kind and helpful to me.

 

[brianmanahan]

OP asks question

but doesnt add a poll...

 

[Lonyo]

Remember HR is the one that also controls your paperwork, pay and benefits.

Do not snub them:whiste:

Our HR is useless.
Transferred office. Got paid twice.
They do pay and benefits... badly.

 

[Lonyo]

I have stage IV cancer and am still employed. HR and my manager have been most kind and helpful to me.

My dad has stage IV cancer and (luckily?) is over 55 so managed to get early retirement sorted with his employer on medical grounds. Still sucks, but it's nice when HR can help out.

Plus my employer gave me some compassionate leave to visit when he was having chemo.
(And have also managed to pay me twice after a transfer)