Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

https://cdoyle.me/2023/01/05/having-friends-in-hr-is-fine-but-hr-is-not-your-friend/

by mooreds • 4 years ago

289 222 4 years ago

As CTO it always was mine and I invested lots of time for good relationships - E.g. visited them everyday for some minutes. But I might have experienced only good and helpful HR departments which were highly interested in people development. The only time I got real trouble was when the head of HR suggested I lay off half of the department (but even then I could change the number way down with cancelling all freelancer contracts and some investments).

timr• 4 years ago

As a C-level executive, HR does represent you. You are the company (in part). If you are on the board, even more so.

For a rank-and-file employee, the interests are divergent. HR represents the company. Even for those who have the ability to hire and fire, HR is only aligned with your interests to the extent that your interests are the interests of the company.

(However, fun fact: at many companies, only the CEO has authority to hire and fire. All such personnel decisions go through an HR-mediated process, and the CEO makes the final call.)

darth_avocado2• 4 years ago

Your employer definitely got legal advice on anything they put in front of you, why shouldn’t you do the same before signing?

Because it costs $700/hour

elil175• 4 years ago

If you're hiring a top law firm. Plenty of lawyers can be had for $100/hour and are well qualified to review employment terms.

darth_avocado2• 4 years ago

If you’re in any big city, you’re not going to get more than a “consultation” of half an hour for $100. Most of the answers you’ll get in that meeting are the ones you can find by a quick Google search, anything more and it will cost you a lot more.

The only cheap option, if you’re lucky, is the local bar association usually does pro bono office hours that you could possibly sign up for and get in. Those don’t work for time sensitive issues like when you have to sign a contract by X date.

D13Fd• 4 years ago

I agree $700/hr is higher than necessary. But I'm not sure what kind of lawyer you are going to get for $100/hr if you're talking about within the U.S.

thekiptxt• 4 years ago

Thank you!

Honestly this is one of my biggest pet peeves with any “consult a $SPECIALIST” advice. Yes, if my money and time were endless, this is sound advice.

Tangentially, when I express frustration at police incompetence in knowing the law (I live in the US, and many law enforcement officers are under-trained), a common response is “this shouldn’t be an issue as you can follow up in court and get the charges dismissed, or even sue the city”. Again, fair suggestion if I have dozens of hours of time on my hand and thousands in lawyer fees to burn.

throwaway987973• 4 years ago

plus, you have to trust you judgement that said expert is a good expert and at that point might as well just risk it and go without

all experts are mostly useful after 10k-100k and even then they suck.

DwnVoteHoneyPot3• 4 years ago

I tend to work for smaller companies so I've been laid off a few times. I've hired employment lawyers each time. I've paid them approx $2K-$3K each time and have receive much more back.

CoastalCoder2• 4 years ago

Can you say more about how they were helpful?

abalashov2• 4 years ago

Prior to going out on my own at a precociously young age, my time in corporate America (~3.5 years) was fairly brief, and less than half of it spent at companies large enough to have an HR apparatus in any meaningful sense.

I always found their seeming double-agent role confusing and ambiguous in a slightly sinister way, even as they preached that they were there for us workforce people if we needed anything.

civilized2• 4 years ago

The dehumanizing name "Human Resources" says it all, doesn't it?

We're not people. We're not even workers. We're just resources that happen to be members of the human species. Similar to other resources like staplers.

There's no perfect euphemism for what HR does, but something like... I don't know... Workforce Management? Would be a little less awful, I think?

benburleson• 4 years ago

I've noticed this as well. Especially going through layoffs. It's not "people" getting "fired," it's "resources impacted." Oh, it's also not a "layoff," it's a "reduction in force."

Maybe I'm old-school, but give it to me straight.

abeppu• 4 years ago

I think it's a mistake to put much weight on the name. In companies where that department is called "People Ops" or "The People Team", the fundamental responsibilities to the company are unchanged.

throwawaysleep3• 4 years ago

Honestly, it is one of the few honestly named things in the corporate world. You are a corporate resource. Nothing more.

barbazoo• 4 years ago

Many companies are moving away from calling it that. Let's not pretend it's like that everywhere. I can't recall the last place I worked that actually called it "Human Resources".

abalashov2• 4 years ago

It's still common among recruiters and staffing companies. Back in the mid-2000s when I was last looking for jobs, it was the bane of my existence to be summoned as a "Linux resource" or something...

79522• 4 years ago

I guess part of the raison d'etre in larger companies is precisely to make humans measurable. And that is necessary to make a company manageable by executives. Although I think in some businesses that kind of work is largely performative.

throwaway987973• 4 years ago

anything in a large enough company is a cog and should be treated as such

legal, accounting, finance, the lower people in those orgs are best helpful drones, at worst agents of petty chaos

seneca• 4 years ago

I disagree with the "mostly harmless" take in the article.

HR is the group everyone, regardless of where they stand in a company, must be the most careful in dealing with. They are beurocrats and, in modern western companies, are becoming ideological commissars.

One of the strongest suggestions I would make to anyone going into white collar work is to avoid HR as much as possible, and be extremely careful of everything you say to them when you do interact with them. For leaders, be very careful about how you let HR grow. Keep it as small as possible and do not let it get into the business of controlling your culture.

none_to_remain• 4 years ago

Yep. This article says HR works for the company's interests, not yours. I think instead maybe HR works for HR's interests.

throwaway987973• 4 years ago

HR loves hiring more HR

the growth rate from 1 HR to 10 HR is slower than 10 to 50.

elil175• 4 years ago

If someone's going to drive company culture, why shouldn't it be HR? They seem well qualified to do so. For example, someone in HR would be in a good position to do the research to figure out if work-from-home improves productivity or employee happiness, and they would also understand the tax and legal implications of a possible work-from-home policy.

csa• 4 years ago

If someone's going to drive company culture, why shouldn't it be HR?

Because HR people are natives of HR culture and only have second hand knowledge of what “engineering culture” or “finance culture” or $WHATEVER culture is, much less what makes a good/healthy/productive engineering or finance or $WHATEVER culture.

I will also add that, while there are a few very talented HR people (and the good ones are freakishly good), most folks in the HR field ended up there rather than sought it out. They are not collectively the most talented or ambitious group of people, and the field often attracts ideologues who sometimes have dysfunctional perceptions of the world we live in.

dogman1442• 4 years ago

What? How are they well qualified to do so.

Culture comes from leadership and leaders. When this doesn’t happen, you get all sorts of organizational issues. HR are not leaders. Culture isn’t productive and clicks per hour research or something you can suss out from forced company fun sessions.

This is a root of an issue in corporate America where management (and it’s offshoots like HR) is considered the mindset, and really it’s about leadership.

Leaders set culture, build companies, grow visions. Managers execute that. Some managers can actually lead. HR supports it. When people hate working at places, it’s always back to a lack of leadership in some way.

79522• 4 years ago

Surely the correct qualification for that kind of research would be some kind of science background.

CoastalCoder2• 4 years ago

Scariest moment at the growing startup I work for was HR approving an engineering requisition.

It may have been just a case of everyone doing whatever tasks are needed, but I gave the engineering director an earful afterward.

jacobr13• 4 years ago

What made it scary? The recruiting and onboarding teams in HR have been some of the most helpful folks I've worked with a manager.

msla2• 4 years ago

Companies in general aren't anyone's friend, in that, ideally, a company is a machine designed to make money within the constraints of law and the ethical rules the leadership decides to follow.

Companies, like nations, have no friends, only interests.

Simplicitas• 4 years ago

Some have even compared them to psychopaths .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film) .. which seems fair.

elil175• 4 years ago

I'm not sure what you mean by ideally there. Do you mean that the platonic company is a money making machine? If so, that's certainly the case.

In practice, though, isn't it better if companies have non-monetary goals? Think Newman's Own, B-corps, etc.

msla2• 4 years ago

I mean a company is, inherently, a money-making concern, and the ideal company obeys both the law and a code of ethics more restrictive than the law. Even a company that devotes all profits to charity has to end up in the black or else it ceases to exist and can't be a charity anymore.

monkeydust• 4 years ago

Yea 20 years of work and this holds very true. Some are obviously better than others about how the manage employee interests vs theirs, best align both tightly as possible, owning equity for me is key to this.

mikojan• 4 years ago

More precisely: They are totalitarian dictatorships. You receive orders from above and maybe hand them down further.

frellus2• 4 years ago

I get the whole "HR can be evil" point, but this article could have also been, "Having friends in management is fine, but management is not your friend".

Personally, I'm so sick of the cynicism in general. Can we make points and articles about protecting yourself, as an employee, without resorting to such things?

As a manager in a company, I've both had friends in HR and also had HR been my friend. Need to fire that horrible employee who is demoralizing the team and not being productive? HR is your friend. Need to hire the next best engineer? HR is my friend.

Have I seen horrible, Catbert-like HR managers and people? Of course. In all levels of an organization, people can be horrible. Why round everything up to the cynical points just to get clicks?

OnlineGladiator2• 4 years ago

Personally, I'm so sick of the cynicism in general.

Personally, I'm so sick of there not being nearly enough cynicism in general.

I've met cops that aren't total pieces of shit (who all ended up quitting in less than 5 years), but that doesn't mean cops aren't total pieces of shit. If the nature of the job is unethical, you should rightly call it out as such. HR's job is to pretend to be your friend while doing whatever the CEO and the lawyers tell them to do. They're the kind of people who are your friends until suddenly they aren't, and then you realize it was all bullshit to begin with.

You're welcome to disagree. But from my perspective you're naive, and from your perspective I'm cynical.

acover2• 4 years ago

Why is the nature of being a cop unethical? I agree there are abuses of the power but from what I've seen in real life it's important work.

frellus2• 4 years ago

Again, I understand why most people think this way, and I'm not going to call you naive - just cynical.

From my experience (not all of it, but a bunch of it) -- HR has been the balancing force against bad management and even CEOs because, like the lawyers, there're there to protect the company. I've not been in a room where the CEO is sitting there telling the lawyers and HR how to abuse employees -- sorry.

Likewise, I agree there are plenty of cops who are POS, and there are plenty who are not. You're missing the part of the equation where people treat all cops like POS, and frankly -- if you've watched shows like COPS and seen what some of them deal with -- it's not hard to see why some of them probably become worse over time.

Both sides of the equation needs to change if you want a better world.

mikrl• 4 years ago

They're the kind of people who are your friends until suddenly they aren't

Happened to me once, I got on the wrong side of some politics and had the awkward termination meeting.

I was civil and cheerful throughout except where I had to be firm and fight my corner: “Pleasure to meet you! Sorry it was under these circumstances, I wish you the best time here!” and I could feel the barely concealed rage emanating from them.

Being in a single party recording jurisdiction was the card up my sleeve, and when I let that slip (after the termination) they looked ready to blow a gasket.

I learned valuable lessons that day about HR, mental health, and how webs can get spun that tangle up idealistic engineers… needless to say, I keep my head down and try to stay out of / avoid starting fights that I don’t stand a chance of winning.

drstewart• 4 years ago

From my perspective, it's very clear from your tone why you and HR don't get along. Professionalism is probably not your strong suit.

amalcon2• 4 years ago

Cynicism tends to go hand in hand with defeatism. I have no problem with cynicism, if you're the rare person willing to take steps to fix or mitigate the problems you are cynical about.

In the more common case, it just leads to giving up. Cynicism is a mistake when it leads to inaction, and inaction is responsible for a lot (arguably most) of the world's problems. I've known people who didn't recycle because they were (maybe still are, we've lost touch) cynical about whether enough other people would do it to matter. The cynicism is getting in the way of action.

No, I don't have a suggestion for what to do about abuse of employees! I know this is not the most helpful, but I'm not the cynic about this. I'm a cynic about other things, but only when I do have a course of action.

laserdancepony• 4 years ago

I disagree wholeheartedly. Calling one of the most foundational jobs in human civilization unethical is ridiculous.

We need people who enforce a standard set of rules onto every member of society, and yes, it will always corrupt some who wield that power. We are humans, after all. But does that make the whole idea "unethical"? I presume not.

I'd rather not live in anarchy.

starlust2• 4 years ago

As a manager in a company, I've both had friends in HR and also had HR been my friend. Need to fire that horrible employee who is demoralizing the team and not being productive? HR is your friend. Need to hire the next best engineer? HR is my friend.

That's not a friend, that's a co-worker doing their job. There's a big difference between a friend and someone you get a long with well in a professional setting.

dogleash• 4 years ago

I'm so sick of the cynicism in general.

Cynicism is just self preservation on topics like this. Most people can’t afford the risk of behaving otherwise.

crmd• 4 years ago

I get what you’re saying but don’t think the Catbert analogy is apropos here.

What I have seen as a senior tech executive and old person is that young people entering the workforce after around 2015-6 often rely on HR to be a neutral arbiter in workplace conflicts, analogous to parental chaperones or university administrators.

What I believe the author is trying to convey is that this misunderstanding can have disastrous consequences on a young person’s career. HR is not a neutral arbiter between you and the business. They are the business.

sumtechguy• 4 years ago

I think every gen gets to learn this lesson. Not just 2015-16. I have seen it many times in my 30yrs. Newbie gets in a twist over something (usually very justified). HR is then a role of the dice if they will help or just come down on everyone or just the two involved, etc... They usually are the arbiters of policy, that they made, rightly or wrongly.

ejb9992• 4 years ago

>What I have seen as a senior tech executive and old person is that young people entering the workforce after around 2015-6 often rely on HR to be a neutral arbiter in workplace conflicts, analogous to parental chaperones or university administrators.

Yep - seen it many times when employees (usually younger) say things like "I'm telling HR" or "I'm reporting you to HR", as if it's the same as "I'm telling Mom", and expecting HR to swoop in and rule in their favor on some workplace dispute - thats not there job, never was, never will be.

While you (the complaining employee) are doing that, the back-channel communication to the manager is telling them how they should probably document 'whatever' in writing so that when you eventually get terminated they have a contemporaneous record of all your bad behavior to use against you.

HR is not your friend, they are not supposed to be.

dotgov• 4 years ago

This hit the nail on the head for me.

I entered the workforce a bit earlier than 2015 and I would have expected HR to be a neutral arbiter as well. My experience at different employers has proven my expectations to be wrong or at least naive. On every occasion I needed to interact with HR, information (eg. applicable laws) was selectively filtered to make it look like my only option was the one that was beneficial to the business.

YMMV, but for me this is good advice and a welcome reminder.

droopyEyelids• 4 years ago

I think the concept you're missing is called "structural incentives"

throwawaysleep3• 4 years ago

HR and management are effectively the same from an employee perspective (with slightly different motives), so the cynicism is equally applicable to you.

Managers aren’t your friend either.

danwee• 4 years ago

Because employees are not at the same level as managers/HR. The latter have power over the formers. You like it or not, when horrible people happens to have power, well that's the worst combination possible.

Employees cannot fire managers nor HR (it's in theory possible, but in practices it almost never happens). HR and managers can fire employees (this happens every week).

Employees do not know how much money managers or HR make. Managers and HR know how much money employees make.

Employees have to ask managers and HR for sick leave/vacation. Managers and HR do not have to ask employees for sick leave/vacation.

And a long etc.

danielmarkbruce• 4 years ago

It's not cynicism. It's realism. The post acknowledges HR can be helpful.

fundad4• 4 years ago

If you believe you deserve constant adulation for earning the title of manager/POTUS/CEO, the reality seems like a cynical attack on your ego.

duxup2• 4 years ago

The cynicism does seem like a race to the bottom.

It’s to the point that discussions are derailed by it with folks who feign knowledge about a topic just offer cynicism. Anything that’s doesn’t work right the empty response is a conspiracy of “oh that’s by design” as if people would otherwise always have things working…

It’s endless online.

nerdponx• 4 years ago

It's always been possible to feign knowledge and wisdom with cynicism, even before public discourse was carried out "online".

It's also always been possible to feign knowledge and wisdom with breathless enthusiasm or optimism. Fakery is fakery.

In general, we are not cynical enough. Humans have been out to take advantage of each other for as long as we have recorded history, and probably for much longer than that. Civilization is maintained in equilibrium between forces that seek to destroy each other, so you can and should assume that those forces exist and are currently and actively attempting to pursue their own gain at your expense. The heart of propaganda is convincing people to act against their own best interests. This is built into the essence of humanity.

nullsense7• 4 years ago

It’s to the point that discussions are derailed by it with folks who feign knowledge about a topic just offer cynicism. Anything that’s doesn’t work right the empty response is a conspiracy of “oh that’s by design” as if people would otherwise always have things working…

It's a safeguard against trying to fight against things that "shouldn't be like this" and burning yourself out. It's endless in the real world too. The reason cynicism runs so deep is that it's warranted. After a period of time you turn around and ask yourself "if everywhere I go and everything I take a close enough look at makes me think 'this shouldn't be like this!' then what is it that I'm missing???". Eventually when the human operating system that underpins it all comes into view, the cynicism sets in. Sure, it's a lazy-ish answer, but in my experience it's a pretty darn good heuristic as far as heuristics go.

andrewmutz• 4 years ago

Personally, I'm so sick of the cynicism in general. Can we make points and articles about protecting yourself, as an employee, without resorting to such things?

I don't think this will happen anytime soon for two reasons.

The first is that cynicism always sounds smart. "Don't take the vaccine, big pharma doesn't care at all about your health and just wants to make money." If you assume bad intentions, regardless of if you have any evidence of bad intentions, you sound smart and people will listen to you.

The second is that cynicism is generally negative in tone, and as a result is much more likely to go viral on the internet. No one clicks on or shares articles that say "HR people are paid to protect the company, but they are good people like the rest of us".

teawrecks2• 4 years ago

HR aren’t evil, they’re just doing a job

Managers on the other hand may or may not work in your best interests, just like any friend. Meanwhile, HR is literally tasked with protecting the company from me. So I would not lump the two into the same basket.

I've been lucky enough to have experienced managers who see my current position as inherently temporary, and would consider it a personal failure to not help me develop my overall career as best I can. I know not all managers think like this, probably not even most managers, but the point is they are allowed to. HR is not.

ravenstine3• 4 years ago

Not only is HR incentivized to defend the company over its employees whenever possible, but I think it's a position that attracts psychopaths. Being in HR takes no extraordinary talent whatsoever, yet HR has massive power over the destiny of individuals. They get to decide whether you have a chance at landing a job you want, make your rent next month, whether a coworker who bullies you gets to keep their job, and so forth. There's good HR people out there, but I've seen a substantial number of dumb, ego-tripping, completely unhelpful HR people as well. If you've got nothing going for you and you have an inferiority complex then HR is for you because you can take out your frustration by deleting resumes that use present participle instead of past participle.

dghughes• 4 years ago

Well then HR should stop pretending to be everyone's friend.

mythhouse• 4 years ago

Need to fire that horrible employee who is demoralizing the team and not being productive? HR is your friend.

Maybe if you are ending up with so many of these 'horrible employees' that you need to make friends with HR then maybe problem is somewhere else.

watwut2• 4 years ago

One is enough to make it sux for everybody. And fairly often, the team is assigned people without leader having the say in advance - especially when it comes to people from other teams.

ravenstine3• 4 years ago

Why round everything up to the cynical points just to get clicks?

Clicks translate to moolah and social capital.

ravenstine3• 4 years ago

Need to hire the next best engineer? HR is my friend.

So long as HR is actually equipped to do that. Such does not seem to be the case the vast majority of the time.

dogman1442• 4 years ago

I have work friends, colleagues, but usually I only ever make 1x friend who I actually trust to speak plainly with and will stay in touch with after work.

For sure, these actual friends at work are great. A mental health buffer, a comrade in arms, a network of two professionals working through companies and careers together.

However, the plainspeak never occurs on company comms platforms. I don’t make that friend until I’m 9 months in and can suss out who’s worth trusting. I always keep some things to myself if that friend is a current coworker vs an ex coworker. That friend is never someone up or down the org chart from me.

It’s not cynical, it’s 10 years of experience surviving and seeing other people blow themselves up because they mistake a workplace for anything but. The more of this you do, the more openings you make to be on the receiving end of workplace politics, and that’s incredibly hard to (a) win at and (b) get out of when it turns south, and it frequently will. And either way, if workplace politics is a concern, you don’t get through it by making friends-friends, you do it by making work friends, building leverage, and aggressively staying out of the way of people who want to pull the social element into work.

fundad4• 4 years ago

I wouldn't go around admitting that some horrible people are allowed to maintain power as HR managers and then ask where the cynicism is coming from.

SkipperCat• 4 years ago

You can sum it up by saying "work is not your family".

foobiekr• 4 years ago

The basic problem with the "you guys are too negative" mindset is that abusers are very common. I'm sure { manager, HR }-you-can-be-friends-with exists. I've at least got very solid friendships with multiple management chains (note the plural, as i think it matters), so I know it is _possible_, the problem is it is _rare_.

To quote one of the HR people I worked with, when I said I was having trouble putting someone just diagnosed with brain cancer on a PIP, "What's the big deal? I just fired someone who just had a heart attack."

The people attracted to the HR career path are basically not good people, either because they aren't particularly bright or driven or because the ones that succeed are basically machiavellian.

knorker2• 4 years ago

At an all hands I once saw an employee ask a question to leadership for legal advice in a class action against the company itself.

:-)

nullsense7• 4 years ago

Nice. How'd that go down?

knorker2• 4 years ago

A slow and clear "I am the company lawyer. I am not your lawyer".

phantom784• 4 years ago

This gets even trickier for HR employees themselves - their job is to look out for the company, while at the same time they're an employee of the company who needs to look out for their own personal interests.

DwnVoteHoneyPot3• 4 years ago

Reminds me of the scene in Social Network movie where Eduardo Saverin says "I thought you were my lawyers".

HR is not on the employee's side and not even on the employer's side. They are on HR's side.

commandlinefan• 4 years ago

They are on HR's side

Yeah... if they were always "representing the best interests of the company", at least they'd be predictable and for the most part I can deal with predictable. What they're usually representing is something else entirely.

Spoom2• 4 years ago

HR represents the company. Where your goals and the company's aligns, they can be helpful. Where they diverge, perhaps less so.

I think a lot of these sorts of articles discount the idea that your goals and the company's will frequently align. For example, if you're being harassed, it's very often in the company's interest to stop that happening. It will cause you and perhaps more people to quit if they don't, and there might be legal risk. If you're productive and impactful, it's often in their interest to help you with career goals.

Things get muddy when you e.g. have a problem with your manager, or folks above you. Then HR has to determine which side to back based on what they feel is most helpful to the company's goals, or what is less risky. But even then, consider that they might want to avoid bad press, lawsuits, etc. If the situation is bad for you, it could be bad for the company too, but it's worth thinking about deeply before going to HR.

epicureanideal6• 4 years ago

HR represents the company. Where your goals and the company's aligns

HR very often does not even work in the interests of the company. Instead, it works in the interest of the HR employees' own political beliefs, which they then cloak in the language of doing what's right for the company, and connect no matter how loosely to any laws, regulations, etc. that they can use to justify imposing the beliefs they wanted to impose anyway.

afarrell• 4 years ago

Yep. And Engineers often have pet projects. Marketing often has a slightly odd artistic vision for something.

People are gonna be people.

criley2• 4 years ago

HR going rogue with political nonsense (I can only imagine some libertarian HR telling everyone 'deal with it yourselves!' lol) is not the fault of that HR, it's the fault of incompetent executives. The issue is never one individual, it's a broken system letting a single individual negatively influence it.

Mountain_Skies• 4 years ago

A few years ago I read an article in a business magazine, Forbes or Inc., that surveyed CEOs and found over half of them fear their company's HR department. It seems HR has evolved to be independent of many company's management structure and answerable only to itself.

robofanatic• 4 years ago

HR also plays little tricks during hiring to see if candidate accepts lowball offers. They put pressure for signing offer saying that there are couple other equally good candidates for the same position. PS - I had first hand experience. found out too late that there were no other candidates waiting for offer :|

rjtavares2• 4 years ago

As someone working in HR for the last few years, this is the most correct take. I would add that people working in HR - like any other area - have their own goals, and you should also take that in consideration. Sometimes they don't align at all with the organization.

BTW, it's really funny reading all these takes thinking HR people are evil. Almost as funny as talking to HR that are completely oblivious to the idea that people have about them.

xcambar• 4 years ago

HR that are completely oblivious to the idea that people have about them.

I can't imagine that's the typical HR pattern. That's certainly not better but I tend to think that they appear oblivious by design, or rather, by education.

Since HR must keep their smiling poker face and their never-promising aleays-optimistic discourse no matter what, they fake this seemingly oblivious character. I guess.

throwawaysleep3• 4 years ago

For example, if you're being harassed, it's very often in the company's interest to stop that happening. It will cause you and perhaps more people to quit if they don't, and there might be legal risk.

Depends. You going to sacrifice a secretary or a engineering manager?

You basically need to try and determine what your value is to the org before going to HR.

epicureanideal6• 4 years ago

Related to the other comment about HR having their own goals...

HR may want to get rid of that engineering manager anyway, so they can be replaced with someone that improves their demographics quotas, I mean targets.

I have actually seen such targets in some OKRs for one or more HR teams, somewhere.

biztos• 4 years ago

That's been my experience too -- after all, HR people are also just trying to do their jobs as well as they can, and if you need something they perceive as their job to provide, they're usually helpful.

But it's important to remember that "representing the company" absolutely can include unethical behavior like stonewalling employees, lying on management's behalf, and slow-walking your requests until they finally time out (by design).

Having experienced that in a big-company context, I would suggest people be very careful and have a Plan B for any HR interaction, especially in time of layoffs. While you're getting hired and set up then HR is probably on your side, to a reasonable approximation, and when they're not your manager will help. After that, never assume they're on your side, or on your manager's side -- HR will absolutely go behind the back of a manager too on behalf of "the Company" (i.e. higher managers).

tootie• 4 years ago

HR is human beings like everyone else in the company. Having friends in HR is definitely a benefit. Same as having friends anywhere else in the org. Ultimately they will tend to protect themselves as will everyone else. When the bottom line dictates something bad has to happen, they likely don't have the juice to stop it. Same goes for everyone outside HR.

briffle• 4 years ago

For example, if you're being harassed, it's very often in the company's interest to stop that happening.

Unless of course, the harraser is a top performer, or VIP in their market. Remeber all that fun with Susan Fowler, an engineer at Uber that went public with her harrasment?

Or the ever infamous https://archive.ph/dUJNs

In those cases, like you said, HR protected the interests of the Company, which was in preserving these high performers. And the people who should have been protected, were screwed over.

endisneigh• 4 years ago

Though in retrospect given this conversation HR didn’t realize it was more in their interest to help Susan than the top performer

mpweiher• 4 years ago

Susan Fowler, an engineer at Uber

I always had a problem with that case: so you start to work for one of the most unethical companies out there, a company whose business model is to circumvent regulations, a company that built software whose sole purpose was to deceive auditors.

And then you are shocked, shocked, that there is gambling^W unethical behavior going on?

mananaysiempre• 4 years ago

[If] you're being harassed, it's very often in the company's interest to stop that happening.

You’d think so, but (as you go on to mention) all too often that interest is mediated through some proxy metric such as legal or publicity risk, which can entail a reaction contrary to your interest: e.g. legal risk might reasonably be thought proportional to your legal budget, which is related to your position in the company, so low-level employees get ignored; or if it’s easy for everybody to get publicity, maybe suspects get fired no matter how slim the evidence (the company is free not to do business, including employment, with whomever they want!), making real claims look less legitimate because a few fake ones are widely known; or legal and publicity risks get mitigated by paying everyone involved to shut up rather than solving the problem; etc.

So far it doesn’t look like proxy metrics imposed by government or popular opinion work all that well.

eschneider• 4 years ago

Sometimes the easiest way to make that 'stop happening' is to force out the person reporting the problem. :/

maximinus_thrax• 4 years ago

For example, if you're being harassed, it's very often in the company's interest to stop that happening.

I agree with this. However, the implementation might not be what the employee would expect. If the victim is moved to another team or fired and the aggressor doesn't face any consequences, the harassment was still stopped, so I guess mission accomplished?

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that if you're in such a position, reach out to HR only after you have secured your own legal protection and never expect nor trust the company to be on your side.

mytailorisrich• 4 years ago

HR mainly does admin (pay, leaves, etc) and advises management on how to avoid employment-related lawsuits, they also advise on employment market trends (e.g. 'this is what the industry pays for this sort of job so if we want to attract people we need to adjust accordingly').

gitfan86• 4 years ago

Also don't forget to take into account short term vs long term goals. Yes a sexual harassment lawsuit is very bad, but that isn't going to happen immediately. So they may chose the short term solution and try to sweep it under the rug.

mc32• 4 years ago

I don’t disagree with anything here.

Some people look at them as ‘impartial judges’. They are not. They have to take the side of the company which will result in more success for the company (not necessarily the manager, or upper manager, but rather the company itself).

clownshoez2• 4 years ago

You're making the assumption that although you're being harassed the best outcome for you and the company are aligned. This is definitely not always the case, if you are being harassed and it happens to be in the best interest for the company to get rid of you, for whatever reason, guess what happens next?

BeetleB• 4 years ago

guess what happens next?

Lawsuits and bad press.

Spoom2• 4 years ago

HR will consider downside risk too. It's usually not the whole story to say that getting rid of you will be simple and easy. You might file a lawsuit. Your colleagues might be demoralized. Other teams might start hearing about the situation and protesting in various ways. The government might get involved. It might lead to bad PR.

PragmaticPulp• 4 years ago

I think a lot of these sorts of articles discount the idea that your goals and the company's will frequently align.

I have to remind a lot of people that HR is not your friend, but that doesn't mean HR is your enemy.

A lot of young people are reading "HR is not your friend" articles and assume that they need to go to war with HR. I've had to mentor some people out of weird situations where HR was trying to genuinely help them, but they refused to engage with HR at all due to some anecdote or article they read online.

The common examples is being PIPed. A lot of people panic as soon as they see anything resembling a PIP because the internet tells them it's a formality before they're fired. In contrast, many HR departments have metrics and incentives that make them want to retain employees at any cost, because it looks bad on them if they can't retain people or they're hiring people who underperform and can't be brought up to expected levels of performance. Contrary to what the internet says, a lot of PIP programs can actually result in positive improvements and good long term outcomes, but a lot of people just shut down and resent the company too much to even engage once it happens.

choppaface• 4 years ago

‘When HR thinks it’s their job to administrate, you’ve already lost.’

One way to more closely align HR with employees is to focus them on championing a certain set of empowerment values. C-Levels should thus use HR to listen and aggregate employee info, and (importantly) use complimentary soft skills in HR to provide coaching to both high and low performers. This is rare but a feasible vision for a nascent HR org.

The same coaching and development goes for those within HR. Being a BP is really not a long-term career for most. I’ve seen a lot of HR peeps do a rotation for a year or two and then go off to be a founder or transition into very different career tracks. If you treat the HR lower ranks well, that energy can help spread to the rest of the team.

It’s really easy to get this wrong, especially in tech where Founders are poor at soft skills and/or hyper product focused. The OP I feel is a very generous view of the norm. But if you want to form a world-class HR team, there are much higher marks to chase.

Existenceblinks• 4 years ago

Exactly my thought, if a company has lawyers legal-wise, they also has HR social-wise. Same kind of justice

rr888• 4 years ago

We dont have HR we have HCM - Human Capital Management, which makes you feel even less important.

moonlighter• 4 years ago

If you talk to HR employees and ask them whether they feel like an employee or rather as "the employer"... based on my own findings most will tell you that they feel like the employer; even though they're just employees too.

bwestergard• 4 years ago

The whole concept of a "human resources" department was developed as a response to workers organizing unions to bargain over terms and conditions of employment. Whatever the flaws of some unions, they are ultimately economically dependent on their members, and the officers are elected. HR is accountable only to executives.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/human-resources-me-too-sexu...

jacobr13• 4 years ago

Wasn't the precursor "Personnel Departments" which were more administrative? Especially in a pre-computer era with more literal paperwork? It seems like HR evolved out of that to service more "strategic" business needs, which sure, probably included union busting, but also includes many other functions to serve companies in more competitive environments that are dominated by knowledge work.

nyolfen• 4 years ago

HR departments grew out of fear of compliance with the amorphous legal incentive structures created by federal discrimination laws in the 1970s https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3322830/Dobbin_S...

The continuing ambiguity of compliance standards led management writers to advocate permanent antidiscrimination offices to track legal shifts. Because the courts were so fickle, Marino (1980, p. 25) advised executives to adopt the “Good-Faith-Effort Strategy,” the heart of which was a special office designed to signal that the employer was making every effort to figure out how to comply. In a Harvard Business Review article, Antonia Chayes (1974, p. 81) noted that “vigorous enforcement” had brought “serious top management attention to antidiscrimination legislation....Now the penalties imposed under employment discrimination laws are seen as posing a severe financial threat.” She advised executives to set up EEO and AA programs that could prevent lawsuits. Meanwhile, compensation of upper managers was being tied to affirmative action performance, and this led them to support dedicated antidiscrimination departments.

this may sound familiar

hardware2win• 4 years ago

I dont understand those bad experiences with HR here

All hr stuff that ive been involved in was getting hired, questions about taxes, days off calculations and health provider related stuff

Like... what happened to you?

jacobsenscott• 4 years ago

Sounds like all the HR stuff you've been involved with is not threatening to the company (lucky you), so of course they are sweet a pie. Go to them for help with a discrimination complaint or the like (or just google up the thousands of stories) and you'll see "what happened".

vlod3• 4 years ago

When you're reliant on them, every single HR dept I've hard to deal with (across many companies) has been incompetent. It's too the point I have systems in place to cover their inevitable screw up.

e.g. I was living in the US and had to go for a business trip to the UK and my company put up in the Ritz Carlton in London (a very fancy and very expensive hotel, especially during new year).

However the HR person thought that having a $50 max total spend for my corporate credit card (for an international trip) was fine. Note the hotel room was probably around $550 per night (times by a week).

Luckily my personal credit card, which had an extremely low cap as I had just moved to the US and had really no credit score, managed to cover it.

Of course no apologies and were blase about it when I spoke to them.

If we behaved like this on our dev teams, we'd all get fired.

rippercushions3• 4 years ago

Unless your company is so tiny that the HR person is wearing many hats, the credit limit on your corp credit card is set by the finance team and likely has nothing at all to do with HR.

Although a $50 (!?) limit on a credit card sounds more like somebody at the bank fucked up.

ejb9992• 4 years ago

The 'bad experiences' with HR are usually because of some employees not understanding who HR serves - I also have never had a problem with HR; you only deal with HR on your first day and last day for the most part.

It's not much different than forgetting that the oh so helpful real estate agent is there to make a sale and a commission, not to make sure you find the perfect house at the best price.

kayodelycaon• 4 years ago

I have a disability. A new HR person was hired and she started introducing policies as if we were a 100,000+ person company, when we had less than 400.

Most of those policies ran head first into ADA. Hard. My manager and I had worked just fine with my limitations prior to these rules. The new HR person wanted to overrule everything and then got pissed when she had to start tracking my time off per hour in a spreadsheet and manually adjust payroll because she didn't know how to enter it in the system properly.

She did some serious gymnastics to get me fired over the protests of several layers of management.

watwut2• 4 years ago

Our company created HR and the result was surprisingly positive. The hiring process started to be way more organized - they made no decisions, but planned interviews, made sure they are when everyone is available and knows about them.

They were also available to explain labor laws, regulations and process whenever leader/manager needed it. That alone made a lot of stuff more predictable.

I was skeptical at first, but it was definitely an improvement.

solarmist• 4 years ago

Well, yeah. That’s their job support management. HR is friends with management, until discrimination or labor laws some into play.

The cases where this is true for ICs pretty much stops after recruiting and onboarding.

nraynaud• 4 years ago

"HR aren’t evil, they’re just doing a job". HR people aren't evil, they are just people who have freely decided to apply evil and cynical policies 8h a day 5 days a week on a group of other people.

paxys• 4 years ago

People think the "resource" in human resources means that the team is available as a resource for employees should they need anything. In reality you are the resource they are referring to.

nullsense7• 4 years ago

I never got the impression anyone thought that? I always thought it was widely understood that we were the resources.

toughsuck• 4 years ago

HR as a function will always represent and serve the company. Thinking anything else is foolish.

But building a strong and friendly relationship with your HR partners is universally a good thing and something one should strive for (be at as as people leader or individual contributor).

xen2xen1• 4 years ago

Keep your friends close?

Cupertino950142• 4 years ago

Someone once said to me, "HR is there to protect the company from the employees." Always keep that in mind. That's what they're paid for.

For some reason, I also think of the quote [1] from Bleak House,

"Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!"

In the old days, they were called "Personnel." Now that's too old-fashioned, and pretty soon the name "HR" will be, too, so they'll call it something else.

[1] https://quotepark.com/quotes/1726203-charles-dickens-this-is...

beckingz• 4 years ago

"People & Culture" is the new hot term.

Cupertino950142• 4 years ago

Very Orwellian. I like it.

nullsense7• 4 years ago

Or "people experience"

Apocryphon• 4 years ago

This comment always stuck with me - does anyone know more of the history ombudsmen, who must've existed prior to the rise of modern HR departments?

octokatt on Feb 19, 2020 | parent | context | un‑favorite | on: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Ube...
why must it be this way Companies used to have Ombudsman; literally a board member who did nothing but listen to employee complaints and help them e heard. This tended to lead to unions, which reduced company profitability, and was replaced with the current HR model, which is now giving way to out-sourced HR models.

asdff• 4 years ago

Universities still have them at least.

xg15• 4 years ago

But don’t forget what their job is, and it’s not to protect your interests, so make sure you have someone at the table who is.

Like a union.

andix2• 4 years ago

HR is your business partner. You can be friends, as long as you are able to keep business separate from friendship. And stopping yourself, when the friendship exposes too much that influences the business.

I think business follows some very clear rules, compared to friendship. It’s always about money. The decision is always in the direction that is the cheapest and brings the most profit. Friendship can help there, if some options are equally priced, then the friend may be chosen, because of the friendship.

I think employees have a very powerful position, once they realize that. Replacing someone can cost up to 6 monthly salaries (fees for headhunters, trainings, …). If you find out where the tipping point is, you can negotiate better. It’s also important to highlight your employers benefits if you want something.

In corporations then currency is quite often not just money, but influence and power. A lot of managers decide based on what will give them more power. If you play along, they may give you much more money/benefits.

t435622• 4 years ago

Cheapest/most profit as the ultimate goal is potentially a cultural thing - long term versus short term benefit might be valued more e.g. in Japan. and less in e.g. the US or the UK.

What you say about the cost of replacing people IS the argument I used for getting one of my team a raise. There's no doubt it's very time consuning and difficult to get suitable new people and well worth the small amount this one wanted.

Now that I'm on the other side of the line I can see that one doesn't want to hire people who are going to fight you all the time or (even worse) fight everyone else and cause trouble. Bad/good as that may be .....

andix2• 4 years ago

Short or long term profit is a cultural thing, even some companies value the one over the other. There are also companies, that will never pay any employee more then the industry average. Those are factors that need to be considered.

About people who fight, that's often really hard to judge. In some companies this is how change happens, and it's appreciated in the end (or not).

jh00ker2• 4 years ago

So, what are some things I should be doing (documenting?) now, as a happy and well-performing at-will US-based employee, so that I can have legal standing for a better "redundancy package" than what is offered, if I'm terminated, later?

This article kind of stops short and seems to just be saying, "get a lawyer before you sign anything," which I've heard before. How would I know if a lawyer would be able to help improve the offer?

jh00ker2• 4 years ago

Alternatively: What case could I make in the "exit interview" or whenever the package is being offered to make a counter-offer and have it considered, without necessarily having to secure legal representation?

t435622• 4 years ago

You Americans brought us the term "Human Resources" which used to be "Personnel" after all. :-) OK I'm joking!!! I don't really know whose fault it is that we are considered "human things" now instead of "people" but it does beautifully demonstrate the attitude that we are like the office printer or the factory machinery but more finickety.

I think it's being public that screws things up the most - there is no loyalty but to the share price and there's nothing legal that management wouldn't do to make it go up apart from arranging their own golden parachutes. So all your efforts to work extra hard or go to the mattresses or whatever are totally pointless until they result in a raise or a promotion.

A private company might be able to weather some storms and take a longer term view. Loyalty might exist there up to a point.

Anyhow it is just silly to flay yourself, which I did in my youth, for some company which can never be grateful or loyal. If you're going to burn the candle at both ends you need to do it in a place where it's going to count. That might be better to do in a startup or smaller company or private company than in some corporation with a stock price.

......in my humble temporary opinion which I will probably change in the next 20 minutes....

marcosdumay2• 4 years ago

OK I'm joking!!! I don't really know whose fault it is that we are considered "human things" now instead of "people"

Just looked at the Wikipedia, and turns out Taylor was born on the US. I always assumed he was British. Almost all the fault for creating the idea falls between him and Ford. The fault for spreading it falls on management schools.

elzbardico• 4 years ago

HR is not your union, HR is not a government labor board. It pays to keep that in mind.

garmain2• 4 years ago

It's utterly bizarre how people keep scape goating HR.

It's the typical situation that whenever HR goes out of their way to make "everyone" happy, no one says acknowledges it. But Management can hide behind "HR" and employees love blaming HR, because that is the person they interact with the most.

nibbleshifter2• 4 years ago

If HR is the person you are interacting with the most, something is deeply fucked.

I interact with HR only during the reviews, and periodically to ask for clarification about a benefit or to update my address or something.

tflinton• 4 years ago

HR can be a blessing to some employees; there have been one occasion at my previous job where an employee was given an increase simply because HR found they had dropped below the 10th percentile in their salary band.

In another situation HR has forced an increase because of a personal rating even though the budget for increases in the department didn't have funding for it (effectively HR forced a budget increase due to the rating of the employee).

Both of these times i've found them to be a welcome and helpful surprise.

That said, it is very true if you're filing a discrimination complaint or otherwise putting the company at risk you're implicitly putting yourself and the person you're accusing into the looking glass, and that could bite you in the butt if HR decides the manager isn't at fault.

revskill• 4 years ago

Title is contraction.

If HR is not your friend, then you don't "having friends in HR".

that_guy_iain• 4 years ago

There is the thing most people don't really think of. They all know HR represents the company and are to look after it's interest. But one major thing, HR needs to keep their job too. I had a really good relationship with HR at one company we were _really_ close. But when the company wanted to get rid of me, she did what anyone else would do that needs their job did the super shady stuff they told her to do and got a new job asap. Most people need their jobs. They need to feed their family.

5cott0• 4 years ago

HR aren’t evil, they’re just doing a job

I don't know about this one, HR (or the lack thereof) in silicon valley has a pretty strong track record of evil.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-...

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/technology/zenefits-scand...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-27/uber-like...

orblivion• 4 years ago

I want to ask a really base level question. And maybe it doesn't relate to this article in particular. Why do I get the vibe that people talk about HR as if it's some sort of clandestine political power center in our society? Or is this is just a recent right wing talking point?

I could maybe see a power struggle between "engineering" and "design" in a company like Apple. Is HR not just a basic managerial function the the CEO can adjust as necessary if something goes wrong?

rippercushions3• 4 years ago

In a well-run company, HR stays in their lane and executes orders from management.

In all too many companies in the real world, management is a chaotic revolving door of political infighting, and HR has a great deal of power. I've worked in a team where an HR rep attended every personnel-related management meeting, and overruled performance ratings, promotions etc while the VP supposedly running the show played Candy Crush.

lapama• 4 years ago

The day I realised HR were (at my employer's) a bunch of liars and manipulating personas it was too late. Since then I am extraordinarily hardline in all my meetings with them. I cannot be sure it is actually working, but you need to be very demanding to get what you deserve (with my employer).

kabdib• 4 years ago

HR is not there for you.

Do not forget this. The nicest, most approachable and apparently friendly HR staffer will happily stuff you down the chute if they are so directed.

Through bitter experience, I treat HR the way I treat the police; they can do good things and they can do bad things, but mostly it's best to avoid their attention altogether and assume that their actions will be for the authorities, always.

mathattack• 4 years ago

HR exists to maximize shareholder value, like every other function. They do things that sound nice in support of this. But don’t ever expect them to take someone’s side out of principle if that hurts shareholder value.

They push for anti-harassment policies because it’s good for shareholders. They normalize compensation because it’s good for shareholders. If they treat people good on the way out, it’s because it’s good for shareholders.

They’re no different than the Finance, Legal or any other department.

yodsanklai• 4 years ago

I read that many times on HN, like a revelation "HR is not your side". This sounds pretty obvious to me. My interaction with HR has never been more than updating some administrative information or sending them documents they need. And the day they'll fire me, why should I expect any special favour from them? I don't see them more on "my side" than the IRS or my landlord.

TurkishPoptart• 4 years ago

I don’t think they’re evil either, but the recent pivot to the insane pursuit of “diversity” and “inclusion” seems to threaten a good working environment.

Required trainings on “pronoun politics” displace what could be trainings in communication, customer service, and professionalism, or even “email etiquette”, all of which our mostly foreign engineering team could really benefit from.

ranting-moth• 4 years ago

This generally applies to the whole company. You can have friends in fellow staff but they're not your friends.

(Terms and conditions apply, your mileage may vary. A friend doesn't throw a friend under the bus if times get though).

SCLeo• 4 years ago

HR aren’t evil, they’re just doing a job

I am not trying to say HR is evil but this line of reasoning makes literally no sense.

Whether someone is just doing the job has absolutely nothing to do with if the job they are doing is evil. "They are just doing their jobs" should never be used to justify anyone's actions. For brevity, I will skip all the war crime analogies that everyone can think of.

stevenkovar• 4 years ago

In essence, HR is the buffer between humans and systems. They create the systems that allow humans to do things like work and be compensated for their work, or to work in an environment where they can expect not to be harassed—at baseline. They clean up everyone's mess when the interface between human and system is compromised.

If a system breaks down, it's HR's job to figure out how to handle the errors. Every company's HR will encounter unwinnable situations where all HR can do is remember the "error code" for next time and, if they're lucky, create systems or policies that prevent it from happening again.

Some (very few) companies have more thoughtfully designed systems that enable the HR team to act proactively on behalf of the employees.

And some (most) companies are poorly structured such that the system is constantly breaking and it's HR's job to keep the company's cadence going as best they can.

I'm guessing most people in this thread have experienced more of the latter.

nullsense7• 4 years ago

In essence, HR is the buffer between humans and systems

Hmm I very much see the people (including HR) and all the dynamics they entail as part of the overall system.

marcosdumay2• 4 years ago

They clean up everyone's mess when the interface between human and system is compromised.

Yeah, that reminds me of the Pulp Fiction movie.

zelon88• 4 years ago

Anecdotal HR story: I got hurt at work once and required surgery. I came into work with this information and told my friendly, cheerful HR person the news. They closed the door to their office and began visibly stressing out about the workers comp claim. I wasn't being berated, but I was being questioned on my motive behind going to a hospital instead of the assigned "occupational health specialist" that the company employed.

The HR person literally said, verbatim, "Awww why didn't you go to OUR doctors? You went to a hospital? This is going to cost us a fortune!"

That really put HR into perspective for me.

ChrisMarshallNY• 4 years ago

HR exist to represent the interests of the company

In the company I worked for, HR was there to protect the C-Suite. There were two sets of rules: The ones for the executives, and the ones for everyone else.

It was pretty routine for us to get training (lots of training), telling us to avoid specific activities (like, say...f'rinstance, dating subordinates), yet we'd see the executives, doing exactly that, without a peep from HR.

bawahahaha• 4 years ago

Bets definition of HR I heard is:

Human Resources: Sure, they are human but really they are resources.

aeschinder• 4 years ago

I was a manager at a well known .com for several years. HR exists to protect the company from its own employees. That's why you have to sit through mandatory DEI training, sexual harassment training and other indignities. Studies have shown that mandatory training does very, very little to change anyone's mind. It is simply to protect the company in case there is an incident.

As for layoffs, it is always Finance and HR that know about all of the plans before anyone else. HR will try its best to perform layoffs under the guise of "reorganization" of departments or the whole company. This gives them cover to get rid of undesirables, older (read "expensive") employees and other people problems.

Firing people is the hardest thing. It is simplicity itself if you are an executive VP or higher, but below that it takes a ream of paperwork, a performance plan and months-long periods where the employee sabotages work, "quiet quits" and makes things miserable for everyone around them. HR doesn't want to create a scene that might reflect poorly on the company.

I'm super jaded after 30 years in IT so I apologize if this is too negative a response.

ftyhbhyjnjk• 4 years ago

HR minus all the shenanigans is good

Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

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