Are All HR Departments Useless?

[Newell Steamer]

Holy crap.

I have yet to come across one where the people in it aren't raging idiots.

This latest encounter had our HR person clicking on a button over and over again,.. from within a word doc's screen grab of the app they were demoing.

 

[MustISO]

I've had mixed experience with HR over my career. Some have been fantastic, others were absolutely a waste of space. I find in larger companies they tend to be a little better but what you're describing is just an idiot user and there are no shortage of them.

 

[cabri]

Holy crap.

I have yet to come across one where the people in it aren't raging idiots.

This latest encounter had our HR person clicking on a button over and over again,.. from within a word doc's screen grab of the app they were demoing.

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

Do not snub them:whiste:

 

[rcpratt]

Ours are pitiful.

Latest story - we had an interview set up last week. HR coordinates the interviews. They had an external candidate set to show up at a certain time, but then forgot to go pick them up and escort them through security, etc. They never picked her up and the HR rep that she had been talking to was out of town. Hey, that really makes this look like a good company to work for.

 

[BurnItDwn]

HR mostly exists as a CYA for businesses in order to reduce the probability of successful lawsuits against them by their workers, or ex workers. They rarely serve any other purpose IMO.

 

[Sheep]

There are some good people but as a whole every HR department I've ever dealt with has been SHOCKINGLY incompetent, to the point where I wonder how they could possibly fill up 40+ hours a week doing nothing.

 

[Art&Science]

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

Do not snub them:whiste:

I had one threaten me once with this (half jokingly half not, the guy was a total prick). My response (as the sysadmin) was this: I can email the CEO of this company, your wife and your hot coworker down the hall from your email address, from your computer without being at your computer and they will be certain you did it.

He backed off.

 

[PenguinPower]

Just going to say up front that I work in HR...

It's hit or miss. If you work for a company where the HR department is stuck in a tactical, administrative ("HR Lady") mindset then, yes, they are probably about as useful as any other data entry clerk.

The HR dept. adds value through strategic forecasting of the labor market; is able to measure attraction/selection/retention metrics and make modifications to relevant programs to improve them; understands risk/reward and is not always tied to "but the law says x;" and, understands the business as is able to tailor development/succession, org structure, and workforce planning to the needs of the particular business unit. Of course, there is more but those are key.

Unfortunately, many HR department operate as the former, not the latter. That being said, there are some extremely incompetent people in accounting departments, IT departments, marketing departments, etc. You cannot escape them.

 

[purbeast0]

Ours are pitiful.

Latest story - we had an interview set up last week. HR coordinates the interviews. They had an external candidate set to show up at a certain time, but then forgot to go pick them up and escort them through security, etc. They never picked her up and the HR rep that she had been talking to was out of town. Hey, that really makes this look like a good company to work for.

lol. that would be an instant turn off and i'd never work for a company like that.

 

[Strk]

Mine is a joke. The one time I had to deal with one of them she spent 10 minutes calling me a liar. Two guys at work got into an argument and one slapped the other. A very generic description of a witness was given that somehow ended getting me called to HR. I said it wasn't me and she just kept accusing me of lying. Until the end when we leave and run into the guy who got slapped (he didn't know my name) and she just asked him if it was me and he said no. She ended with a 'thank you for your time.' No apology or anything.

 

[ctbaars]

Holy crap.

I have yet to come across one where the people in it aren't raging idiots.

This latest encounter had our HR person clicking on a button over and over again,.. from within a word doc's screen grab of the app they were demoing.

Are these the same people that took away your nice lunch spot with big windows for their private conference room? How many HR groups like this have you come across?

 

[ctbaars]

Must be all white people in that HR group.

 

[ctbaars]

Blonde too ... am-I-right?

 

[Sable]

yes.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Ours are pitiful.

Latest story - we had an interview set up last week. HR coordinates the interviews. They had an external candidate set to show up at a certain time, but then forgot to go pick them up and escort them through security, etc. They never picked her up and the HR rep that she had been talking to was out of town. Hey, that really makes this look like a good company to work for.

I once walked into an interview where the HR person was referencing the wrong job all along - from when she reached out to me to when we sat down with the business.

The business was like; ",.. I never gave you this job description."

I showed up for no reason whatsoever.

 

[Sheep]

I once walked into an interview where the HR person was referencing the wrong job all along - from when she reached out to me to when we sat down with the business.

The business was like; ",.. I never gave you this job description."

I showed up for no reason whatsoever.

That reminds me of a recent interaction with HR. In my group, we vet resumes before they do and ask them to set up initial contact interviews to see if a candidate is likely to be a good fit. We targeted someone as a potential mid-level, research manager candidate. Per an internal email I was copied on, it turns out HR contacted this candidate about a *VP* position despite all the information they had in front of them (internal emails from us that included the position and job details, the candidate's resume not being anywhere near appropriate for VP-level, etc.). Like I said, shockingly incompetent.

 

[Pulsar]

Yes. They are 100% worthless. Their entire point is to protect the company. There is nothing 'human resourcey" about them - at all. The most likely result of you going to human resources for help on some issue is ending up with zero help and a letter in your "permanent file" about something you've done wrong.

I work for a large corporation and I have never seen such a large group of useless and clueless individuals in my life. In fact, if you call them on the phone for help, they will refuse to help you and tell you to schedule an appointment.

We had 1 useful HR person. He came out and worked in our position for close to a year, and boy did his tune change. He began to understand that you don't just discipline people because they did something wrong, and he also understood how often we get stuck between what our boss is telling us to do and what the company believes we are 'supposed' to do in a given situation.

Of course, he was quickly promoted, because he had a clue. His replacement not so much.

In addition, we work in a just-in-time environment. Our HR folks seem to have the same attitude I've seen with many government workers. Just in time is when they feel like getting around to it. Zero urgency, zero understanding that 4 hours is 3 hours and 59 minutes too fucking long when you're talking about $18,000 a minute of being shut down because someone is playing games.

 

[Markbnj]

Yes, HR is the triumph of rules over reason.

 

[lamedude]

HR mostly exists as a CYA for businesses in order to reduce the probability of successful lawsuits against them by their workers, or ex workers. They rarely serve any other purpose IMO.

Learned that the hard way.

 

[madoka]

“I’ve never met one of you who didn’t suck. I’ve never known an HR person who had anything but a mediocre mentality.”

- Steve Jobs

 

[her209]

http://i.imgur.com/jIEK1.jpg

 

[TwiceOver]

We don't really have an HR department but this is the type of interaction I always hear about from my friends:

"I have a problem with {whosits}, he always {blah blah blah}."
HR: "You should probably work this out directly with {whosits}."

Seriously, isn't that your job?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I generally am okay with the HR people I've dealt with. They do paperwork so other people don't have to. A lot of people fall into that category; it's an honorable thing.

The HR dept. adds value through strategic forecasting of the labor market; is able to measure attraction/selection/retention metrics and make modifications to relevant programs to improve them; understands risk/reward and is not always tied to "but the law says x;" and, understands the business ...

So you take pride in selectively following labor laws when you think risk/reward is in your favor? Pretty sure that's the kind of stuff that makes people complain about HR departments. At least until they die in an easily preventable workplace accident.

 

[Mixolydian]

Yes.

 

[PenguinPower]

I generally am okay with the HR people I've dealt with. They do paperwork so other people don't have to. A lot of people fall into that category; it's an honorable thing.



So you take pride in selectively following labor laws when you think risk/reward is in your favor? Pretty sure that's the kind of stuff that makes people complain about HR departments. At least until they die in an easily preventable workplace accident.

There's gray area in the interpretation of many laws. I'm not saying that we go out and say, "Oh, there's a 5% chance that person will ever sue us for retaliation under the FMLA. Deny their leave and make them suffer."

More like, "Those Catalogers are a burdening fixed cost when we class them as exempt under the FLSA and they aren't producing 40 hours worth of work most weeks. Let's run the exemption test again...oh, you know what. I don't think they really have independent judgment to the level necessary to qualify as exempt. Let's knock them down to non-exempt and make it a variable cost."

Edit: And I will say, a lot of the interpretation that we do, ultimately is for the benefit of the Ee, especially in regard to job protected leave/pay situations.