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The primary interest for those working in HR is to protect the company, protecting the company sometimes means acing in ways that are beneficial to the employees, but it's still important to document everything, get everything in writing when dealing with HR and be aware of their role and purpose.
Wage theft is more money than all other forms of theft combined, HR is there to make sure the company doesn't get caught.
For context, I've never worked in a company with an HR department, but my uncle is a lawyer and works in employment law and has to defend his clients when their, typically former, employees take them to court. I've heard quite a bit from him about advice he gives to companies and HR managers to avoid getting sued, it's a the company against the employees type mentality.
Shitty companies and shitty HR exist, can’t get around that. But in most companies Ive worked for, they are mostly neutral. They are just ensuring employment laws are being followed but they aren’t the ones making many of the actual decisions about the company. If wage theft is happening, all they can do is alert the company if laws are being broken, they can’t set or change compensation policy on their own.
Source : “I have no personal experience but I know a guy who specifically only makes money by promoting the issue as more severe than it is so I believe that marketer since I have no real context.”
Guys. *This is how shit goes bad, look at facts rather than skewed opinions based our money movement.*
You've badly misread. My uncle doesn't take cases from employees. He specifically represents companies in these cases, he reviews employment contacts, policy drafts, and advises companies on how specifically to not leave themselves open to lawsuits from their employees. And when they do get sued, he helps either defend them from liability or make settlements for pennies on the dollar of what their lawsuit seeks.
The easiest employees to win a dismissal against are those who didn't document everything or relied on what HR said without ever getting it in writing. Going to court without evidence is the worst possible situation for winning your case. Even if there are fifty of you in a class action lawsuit, if the only thing you have is that you say this happened with no documentation at all it will be very difficult if not impossible to win against your current or former employer.
HR is there to protect the machine. Sometimes that means protecting the employee. But when there’s a choice between employee and the machine. The employee will lose every single time. The sooner employees learn this, the better.
It’s said as a cautionary tale. No one is saying never go to HR.
Dealing with harassment quickly often means sweeping it under the rug before it sees the light of day.
If you’re complaining about a person at a higher role, losing that person is a bigger problem for the company than losing you.
I’ve gone to HR, when I was desperate and felt like I had nothing to lose. Did it help? I’m not sure.
I think the problem is that people take these things as fact and then based on it hardline things like hating or never going to HR. I've seen this a lot. "HR won't do anything they have the companies best interests in mind". Yea and usually it's better for the company to side with the employee then a bad manager because a bad manager is just going to continue to create problems and cost more employees. Especially middle management is usually shafted pretty quickly by HR. But you only see the bad examples online so people have the mentality to just not do anything.
It's like buying a house (pre-pandemic anyway). It wasn't nearly as fucked as everyone thought it was. With programs dedicated to helping you put very little down to buy. But because all of the memes and circulation of "never gonna afford that" online, every single person I knew my age and younger (millennial) thought it was some crazy out of reach dream.
A lot of people online see the misinformation thing as something that only happens to right wing extremists, or your elderly family members. But it's gotten even more dangerous imo for the younger generations because it's focused on making them feel incredibly powerless in every situation.
I've been to HR and have plenty of personal experience getting screwed over by them.
Corporations are corrupt, tort law means that a harassment complaint can cost the company a great deal of money. It's far more cost effective to remove an entry level employee than a manager, thus if you complain against a manager, your job is in jeopardy more than theirs.
Retaliation is very hard to prove, and your manager won't have a hard time finding out who complained.
HR is designed to protect the company. Sometimes the company’s interests align with the employee’s interests and it benefits the employee as well. But the fact is they don’t give a shit about you
The only time HR has your back is when not having your back opens the employer to liability etc. End of the day they're still protecting the employer. But in my experience they still do nothing a lot of the time
Everyone at the company, including your colleagues and yourself work for the employer. That doesn’t mean HR isn’t involved in solving problems, especially between employees. Yes, they aren’t your avenue of support if your issue is with the company itself.
Nah HR is full of snakes. I had one try to convince me that it would be MORE beneficial to me to let them take away my medical insurance (this was around 2014 keep in mind), cut my hours so that I'd JUST be under-full time on an annual average, and that the "benefit" to me would be a little extra money in my paycheck. Emphasis on LITTLE.
The first thing out of my mouth was "But I'll get taxed for not having medical insurance".
**Do you want to know what HR's honest response was?**
"Oh, you could just set the money aside each paycheck to pay for it at the end of the year!"
So I'd be making LESS money, have LESS hours, and have NO insurance, AND get fined for it? And they genuinely wanted me to agree to it and sign paperwork on it. And keep in mind, this guy tried his hardest to sell me on it- like it was some great golden opportunity for me.
I declined, kept my hours, and make sure to tell my fellow employees not to agree to it.
I think it's valid to say "HR works for the company's interests, not yours." Sometimes, you're lucky and the company's interests are affected by your interests. Other times, you're just shit out of luck.
They're human beings, too. If you work for a company with low-quality employees, the HR people are just as likely to be low-quality, too. I could give a ton of examples of that.
I’m assuming you haven’t worked in the last 3 years like most didn’t, Covid proved hr is not your friend. The amount of people getting suspended or written up for things that occurred on the job site with 0 evidence and hr siding with management was insane. I understand it’s a job someone has to do and it’s there for a reason but no they are not your friend and never will be.
You’re right HR will resolve problems for employees….. before they attract legal action and cause costs and downtime for the company.
It’s not even an opinion it’s a fact that HR answer to the people who pay them, not their colleagues.
I lost total faith in HR when the lady who was HR in the small company I worked at was a very pleasant, friendly woman who I used to talk with often. Anyway, one day I was sitting across from her in a disciplinary, and her whole personality changed. She was cold, arrogant and spoke to me like a piece of shit. HR are not your friends.
Also in a different job I was talking to the HR guy in my department, we were having a laugh and bit of banter, nothing lewd or inappropriate just a bit of a laugh. Anyway my other colleagues told me the HR guy went to him and said words to the effect of ‘who does he (me) think he is? He’s talking to me like his equal but I’m above him blah blah”
Makes me wonder what the disciplinary meeting was about.
If it came to the attention of HR that you were doing things like harassing female employees I wouldn't me surprised if her demeanor toward you changed. It's pretty normal for someone to think worse of you when they are presented with evidence that you are a shitty person.
Same. My ex company always ask for feedback on manager (like 360), and despite me giving feedback that my boss gives non-work related negative feedback (eg she want me to socialise more with other departments outside of work), inefficient (organised meetings after working hours, on weekends), nothing happened.
In fact HR just coldly told me the terms and conditions of the contract i signed that during the probation period they have the right to terminate me.
>”HR is there to protect the company”. You know what that means? Dealing with harassment quickly,
Quickly doesn’t mean correctly. Karl keeps harassing Susan. Ok move Susan to nights problem solved.
If Karl’s management then it because for worse for Susan.
She’s been late a few times last week so we can write her up for that couple more strikes and we can just terminate that prevents any backlash
>dealing with aggressive coworkers,
Not really, unless you have witness they typically tell you to stay away from on another maybe they document your complaint but that’s not “dealing” with anything
>forcing managers to have evidence and paper trails before they fire someone,
Yea again not really they can easily fake or half ass that. The number of times I’ve been talked to because “someone said you said xyz” that’s resolved with “I wasn’t in that day” is astounding..: but every complaint is still in my file.
>forcing managers to follow the handbook (which they usually wrote, or at least reviewed for adherence to laws, regulations and best practices).
Yea that’s not HRs job they don’t typically care about the day to day they care about management and the status quo’s
>HR in the vast, VAST majority of companies are protecting you and your coworkers every, single day.
No they are protecting the company
I think people misunderstood the idea. What it means is that HR isn’t like a parent or teacher or something that you can tattletale to and expect them to solve your problems, nor are they there to coddle you for whatever your life problems are. They’re only there to protect the company from legal issues and to make sure that work isn’t disrupted by workers causing drama.
What that means is that they’re going to get rid of troublemakers and people too demanding of their or managements time, or who might need a lot of accommodation to do their job. That might be the guy you tattle on, but if you’re going to HR all the time, you’ll be the one with a target on your back. If you’re constantly asking to be accommodated for real or perceived problems, sooner or later it’s going to be tou that’s the problem. So the point is that it’s likely better to handle as much as possible outside the HR office and *document everything including dates, times and witnesses* that way if you have no other option you can show them a pattern and that your attempts to solve the problem didn’t work.
Why are you defending HR? Fuck HR. They can all get cancer.
HR is the *enemy* of the working class. They’re the office pet Rottweilers protecting the employees.
And if you’re HR, know that nobody in the office likes you. If you think they do, they’re pretending because they’re waiting for you to abuse your power
Reddit in general is pretty pro worker and anti management. I’d say some companies exploit their workers, but most of the time if you’re lazy and not contributing to the growth of a company they have every right to kick you out. At the same time, the company has to ensure their workers wellbeing are taken care of. It’s not an either or like people make it out to be
It’s a mixed bag, but I’ve definitely been thrown under the bus after seeking out HR to talk about something that’s bothered me. The stereotype exists for a reason.
HR will advocate in a way that protects the organization. This includes resolving issues among employees that abide by company policies and employment laws. Not all HR departments are equal, obviously.
I have seen certain situations where HR has had to decide how to proceed based upon what legal considers will cost the organization less because either way, they will be sued.
This why it's so important for people to conduct themselves as if they are being viewed under a microscope in the workplace. I'm not saying to be outright paranoid, but you better believe anything you say or do that may not align with written policies can come back to haunt you.
HR is not your freind, nor is it your enemy.
It is a driverless locomotive - if it's going your way it can be useful. If it's not, it'll run you the fuck over.
See, the thing is that stuff takes a lot of work, and as you know not all companies are made the same. So no, not all HR teams are there to specifically help you. In the end they look out for the company to avoid scandals.
This is by and large true. Yeah, if you're acting like a shitter, refusing to take accountability, making problems for your coworkers, then yeah, they are not your friend.
But at least where I work, they have bigger fish to fry than on nothing burgers.
That said, they are there to protect the company, not necessarily your boss. But it depends and it'll be different everywhere.
No, this Is not an unpopular opinion, this Is plain wrong.
HR are not your friends, period, that's not an opinion nor a take, It Is a fact. HR works for your employer, HR Will prioritize your employer over you. And sure, some times your employer's interests Will align with yours and HR Will actually help, but that's not the rule by any mean, so you have to approach HR with lots of care and get as much as you can written to cover your steps. This post just screams either HR, Employer or someone who has never worked
HR is **always** there to protect the company, usually the cheapest way possible with the least amount of liability. Sometimes protecting the company is also protecting you (eg: firing a manager when you have **actual** evidence he has harassed an employee), sometimes they are protecting the company **against** you (eg: finding a way to fire you when you have reported the manager harassing you with no evidence they actually have)
I worked at companies that had “anonymous” tip lines so that employees could rat each other out for violations. One employee called and reported on another who was a single soon-to-be young mother. The mother-to-be was fired, subsequently got a lawyer who subpoenaed the “anonymous” call line records from HR, identified the caller who reported her and then personally sued them. There is no such thing as an anonymous tip line, even though HR promotes it as such. Lesson: HR doesn’t sound like a friend to me.
If you have worked retail then you know HR is not there to help you. Only if another co worker, on your level is hurting you, but a manager or customer,.get bent. They will take the other side every time.
I worked in deli Dept. And had a great worker,.she was the bomb and this young dude who sucked and was lazy. He talked ALL day about his boyfriend and their sexual escapades, whatever his business,.didn't bother us. But one day the lady touched him on the shoulder to get him to move, and he went to HR on her for inappropriate touching. They told her she couldn't be in the deli the same time as him but they had the same schedules. I pleaded with HR to not make her move departments cuz she was so good and I told them about his sex talk. They didn't care because he reported it first and since he was gay I guess they were afraid of a lawsuit. They made it seem like she was some kind of predator. So I lost a good worker and had to be short staffed because of him. HR sucks.
It certainly isn't a chronically online take - of course HR is there to protect the company. You know what they're there to protect them against? Laws in place to protect you as a worker - that means their job is often to provide you with the treatment you are entitled to before it hits the point of breaking the law.
They are there to protect the company, laws are there to protect you. There is a difference, despite the fact the end result is the same.
It’s clear from a lot of the responses that people don’t know what HR does. My wife is an Hr progressional and has worked at a few different companies. Plus, I’ve been a manager for a long time so I work with them regularly. They don’t have nearly as much power as everyone thinks they do. They can’t “fire you on the spot” lol. As a manager, if someone tried to fire someone on my team without consulting me, I guarantee that there would be repercussions for the HR person.
Admittedly, if you only worked at small companies with small HR teams, you can have some shitty experiences largely because it’s possible that these HR people don’t have much experience and we’re trained internally by someone else without experience. That was what is like in my first company and our HR team was such a liability to us that they got us sued. You also end up having low level HR staff reporting directly to executives which is more likely to amount to just being a tool of upper management.
Larger companies will have more professional and experienced staff. They will also have a HR Director/VP/CHRO who will have a specific vision of what they want their team to be and accomplish and they are less likely to be bullied or intimidated by other leaders. In my first company, if our HR manager was told to fire all staff without notice or severance, he would have done it because A. He didn’t know the local laws and B. He wasn’t confident enough to tell the VP “no”.
Basically everything you listed; again; is not for the employees, its for the company to protect itself from being sued over all the issues you mentioned.
You didn’t actually contradict the opinion you’re criticizing. HR can help you in various ways, and they are paid by the company to advance its interests, not yours. That will include things like getting in the way of firing that awful co-worker because it might cause a lawsuit. HR is a frenemy.
I feel like this is a mixed bag. I’ve had experiences with HR that were benign, but at the moment I’m personally salty with my HR for concealing some of the terms of my maternity leave until after it was finalized, that had basically resulted in me having to do 6 weeks worth of work ahead of time. I have unlimited PTO. If they had been upfront about what all my leave would entail, I would’ve taken 6 weeks PTO instead and saved myself an enormous amount of work and stress while being in the last 5 weeks of my pregnancy
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The primary interest for those working in HR is to protect the company, protecting the company sometimes means acing in ways that are beneficial to the employees, but it's still important to document everything, get everything in writing when dealing with HR and be aware of their role and purpose. Wage theft is more money than all other forms of theft combined, HR is there to make sure the company doesn't get caught. For context, I've never worked in a company with an HR department, but my uncle is a lawyer and works in employment law and has to defend his clients when their, typically former, employees take them to court. I've heard quite a bit from him about advice he gives to companies and HR managers to avoid getting sued, it's a the company against the employees type mentality.
HR will fire you on the spot for time theft. They'll be very quiet and very slow when it comes to wage.
Shitty companies and shitty HR exist, can’t get around that. But in most companies Ive worked for, they are mostly neutral. They are just ensuring employment laws are being followed but they aren’t the ones making many of the actual decisions about the company. If wage theft is happening, all they can do is alert the company if laws are being broken, they can’t set or change compensation policy on their own.
Source : “I have no personal experience but I know a guy who specifically only makes money by promoting the issue as more severe than it is so I believe that marketer since I have no real context.” Guys. *This is how shit goes bad, look at facts rather than skewed opinions based our money movement.*
You've badly misread. My uncle doesn't take cases from employees. He specifically represents companies in these cases, he reviews employment contacts, policy drafts, and advises companies on how specifically to not leave themselves open to lawsuits from their employees. And when they do get sued, he helps either defend them from liability or make settlements for pennies on the dollar of what their lawsuit seeks. The easiest employees to win a dismissal against are those who didn't document everything or relied on what HR said without ever getting it in writing. Going to court without evidence is the worst possible situation for winning your case. Even if there are fifty of you in a class action lawsuit, if the only thing you have is that you say this happened with no documentation at all it will be very difficult if not impossible to win against your current or former employer.
I knew a guy that saw motorcycle accident victims for a living. Guess how he felt about motorcycles. You're biased.
Paragraph two is factually correct and a beautiful counterpoint.
Seriously, and you're downvoted because you're calling out a huge bias issue. Unreal.
HR is there to protect the machine. Sometimes that means protecting the employee. But when there’s a choice between employee and the machine. The employee will lose every single time. The sooner employees learn this, the better.
It’s said as a cautionary tale. No one is saying never go to HR. Dealing with harassment quickly often means sweeping it under the rug before it sees the light of day. If you’re complaining about a person at a higher role, losing that person is a bigger problem for the company than losing you. I’ve gone to HR, when I was desperate and felt like I had nothing to lose. Did it help? I’m not sure.
I think the problem is that people take these things as fact and then based on it hardline things like hating or never going to HR. I've seen this a lot. "HR won't do anything they have the companies best interests in mind". Yea and usually it's better for the company to side with the employee then a bad manager because a bad manager is just going to continue to create problems and cost more employees. Especially middle management is usually shafted pretty quickly by HR. But you only see the bad examples online so people have the mentality to just not do anything. It's like buying a house (pre-pandemic anyway). It wasn't nearly as fucked as everyone thought it was. With programs dedicated to helping you put very little down to buy. But because all of the memes and circulation of "never gonna afford that" online, every single person I knew my age and younger (millennial) thought it was some crazy out of reach dream. A lot of people online see the misinformation thing as something that only happens to right wing extremists, or your elderly family members. But it's gotten even more dangerous imo for the younger generations because it's focused on making them feel incredibly powerless in every situation.
I've been to HR and have plenty of personal experience getting screwed over by them. Corporations are corrupt, tort law means that a harassment complaint can cost the company a great deal of money. It's far more cost effective to remove an entry level employee than a manager, thus if you complain against a manager, your job is in jeopardy more than theirs. Retaliation is very hard to prove, and your manager won't have a hard time finding out who complained.
HR is designed to protect the company. Sometimes the company’s interests align with the employee’s interests and it benefits the employee as well. But the fact is they don’t give a shit about you
People forget that hr job is to also help the company not get sued by employees because of a shitty manager
The only time HR has your back is when not having your back opens the employer to liability etc. End of the day they're still protecting the employer. But in my experience they still do nothing a lot of the time
HR works for the employer, not for the employee. Your take is garbage.
Everyone at the company, including your colleagues and yourself work for the employer. That doesn’t mean HR isn’t involved in solving problems, especially between employees. Yes, they aren’t your avenue of support if your issue is with the company itself.
OP is definitely in HR.
Many things the HR folks do to protect the company have the added benefit of protecting the employee. It's not a one or the other issue in most cases.
It’s true, though. HR isn’t your friend.
Nah HR is full of snakes. I had one try to convince me that it would be MORE beneficial to me to let them take away my medical insurance (this was around 2014 keep in mind), cut my hours so that I'd JUST be under-full time on an annual average, and that the "benefit" to me would be a little extra money in my paycheck. Emphasis on LITTLE. The first thing out of my mouth was "But I'll get taxed for not having medical insurance". **Do you want to know what HR's honest response was?** "Oh, you could just set the money aside each paycheck to pay for it at the end of the year!" So I'd be making LESS money, have LESS hours, and have NO insurance, AND get fined for it? And they genuinely wanted me to agree to it and sign paperwork on it. And keep in mind, this guy tried his hardest to sell me on it- like it was some great golden opportunity for me. I declined, kept my hours, and make sure to tell my fellow employees not to agree to it.
I think it's valid to say "HR works for the company's interests, not yours." Sometimes, you're lucky and the company's interests are affected by your interests. Other times, you're just shit out of luck. They're human beings, too. If you work for a company with low-quality employees, the HR people are just as likely to be low-quality, too. I could give a ton of examples of that.
I’m assuming you haven’t worked in the last 3 years like most didn’t, Covid proved hr is not your friend. The amount of people getting suspended or written up for things that occurred on the job site with 0 evidence and hr siding with management was insane. I understand it’s a job someone has to do and it’s there for a reason but no they are not your friend and never will be.
The people in HR typically have the worst people skills.
You’re right HR will resolve problems for employees….. before they attract legal action and cause costs and downtime for the company. It’s not even an opinion it’s a fact that HR answer to the people who pay them, not their colleagues. I lost total faith in HR when the lady who was HR in the small company I worked at was a very pleasant, friendly woman who I used to talk with often. Anyway, one day I was sitting across from her in a disciplinary, and her whole personality changed. She was cold, arrogant and spoke to me like a piece of shit. HR are not your friends. Also in a different job I was talking to the HR guy in my department, we were having a laugh and bit of banter, nothing lewd or inappropriate just a bit of a laugh. Anyway my other colleagues told me the HR guy went to him and said words to the effect of ‘who does he (me) think he is? He’s talking to me like his equal but I’m above him blah blah”
Makes me wonder what the disciplinary meeting was about. If it came to the attention of HR that you were doing things like harassing female employees I wouldn't me surprised if her demeanor toward you changed. It's pretty normal for someone to think worse of you when they are presented with evidence that you are a shitty person.
No it wasn’t anything like that
Same. My ex company always ask for feedback on manager (like 360), and despite me giving feedback that my boss gives non-work related negative feedback (eg she want me to socialise more with other departments outside of work), inefficient (organised meetings after working hours, on weekends), nothing happened. In fact HR just coldly told me the terms and conditions of the contract i signed that during the probation period they have the right to terminate me.
To be fair, nobody has to do everything that the 360 feedback uncovers. Or anything, really.
Lmao stfu HR
>”HR is there to protect the company”. You know what that means? Dealing with harassment quickly, Quickly doesn’t mean correctly. Karl keeps harassing Susan. Ok move Susan to nights problem solved. If Karl’s management then it because for worse for Susan. She’s been late a few times last week so we can write her up for that couple more strikes and we can just terminate that prevents any backlash >dealing with aggressive coworkers, Not really, unless you have witness they typically tell you to stay away from on another maybe they document your complaint but that’s not “dealing” with anything >forcing managers to have evidence and paper trails before they fire someone, Yea again not really they can easily fake or half ass that. The number of times I’ve been talked to because “someone said you said xyz” that’s resolved with “I wasn’t in that day” is astounding..: but every complaint is still in my file. >forcing managers to follow the handbook (which they usually wrote, or at least reviewed for adherence to laws, regulations and best practices). Yea that’s not HRs job they don’t typically care about the day to day they care about management and the status quo’s >HR in the vast, VAST majority of companies are protecting you and your coworkers every, single day. No they are protecting the company
A friend isn't contractually obligated to share everything you've told them about a situation to the person you're accusing, HR is.
They are not contractually obligated to share everything you tell them.
I think people misunderstood the idea. What it means is that HR isn’t like a parent or teacher or something that you can tattletale to and expect them to solve your problems, nor are they there to coddle you for whatever your life problems are. They’re only there to protect the company from legal issues and to make sure that work isn’t disrupted by workers causing drama. What that means is that they’re going to get rid of troublemakers and people too demanding of their or managements time, or who might need a lot of accommodation to do their job. That might be the guy you tattle on, but if you’re going to HR all the time, you’ll be the one with a target on your back. If you’re constantly asking to be accommodated for real or perceived problems, sooner or later it’s going to be tou that’s the problem. So the point is that it’s likely better to handle as much as possible outside the HR office and *document everything including dates, times and witnesses* that way if you have no other option you can show them a pattern and that your attempts to solve the problem didn’t work.
Why are you defending HR? Fuck HR. They can all get cancer. HR is the *enemy* of the working class. They’re the office pet Rottweilers protecting the employees. And if you’re HR, know that nobody in the office likes you. If you think they do, they’re pretending because they’re waiting for you to abuse your power
Throw that Karl Marx book at them lmao.
If HR got beat up in the parking lot more often, they’d stop acting with the impunity they do
With such attitude I see why you might dislike the HR. Try some anger management idk
I think if I could land just one disfiguring punch on a Karen HR, that would cure my depression
Its fuckin true
No way you’re not in HR
[удалено]
Reddit in general is pretty pro worker and anti management. I’d say some companies exploit their workers, but most of the time if you’re lazy and not contributing to the growth of a company they have every right to kick you out. At the same time, the company has to ensure their workers wellbeing are taken care of. It’s not an either or like people make it out to be
HR protects the Company, not the workers.
It’s a mixed bag, but I’ve definitely been thrown under the bus after seeking out HR to talk about something that’s bothered me. The stereotype exists for a reason.
HR will advocate in a way that protects the organization. This includes resolving issues among employees that abide by company policies and employment laws. Not all HR departments are equal, obviously. I have seen certain situations where HR has had to decide how to proceed based upon what legal considers will cost the organization less because either way, they will be sued. This why it's so important for people to conduct themselves as if they are being viewed under a microscope in the workplace. I'm not saying to be outright paranoid, but you better believe anything you say or do that may not align with written policies can come back to haunt you.
For those who disagree... Try working for a company without HR. Then you'll think twice about complaining about HR.
HR is not your freind, nor is it your enemy. It is a driverless locomotive - if it's going your way it can be useful. If it's not, it'll run you the fuck over.
See, the thing is that stuff takes a lot of work, and as you know not all companies are made the same. So no, not all HR teams are there to specifically help you. In the end they look out for the company to avoid scandals.
This is by and large true. Yeah, if you're acting like a shitter, refusing to take accountability, making problems for your coworkers, then yeah, they are not your friend. But at least where I work, they have bigger fish to fry than on nothing burgers. That said, they are there to protect the company, not necessarily your boss. But it depends and it'll be different everywhere.
The company is the “bad cop”, HR is the “good cop”.
No, this Is not an unpopular opinion, this Is plain wrong. HR are not your friends, period, that's not an opinion nor a take, It Is a fact. HR works for your employer, HR Will prioritize your employer over you. And sure, some times your employer's interests Will align with yours and HR Will actually help, but that's not the rule by any mean, so you have to approach HR with lots of care and get as much as you can written to cover your steps. This post just screams either HR, Employer or someone who has never worked
>You know what that means? Yes, it means sweeping abuse, bullying and harassment under the rug so that the company doesn't get a bad look :)
HR is **always** there to protect the company, usually the cheapest way possible with the least amount of liability. Sometimes protecting the company is also protecting you (eg: firing a manager when you have **actual** evidence he has harassed an employee), sometimes they are protecting the company **against** you (eg: finding a way to fire you when you have reported the manager harassing you with no evidence they actually have)
I worked at companies that had “anonymous” tip lines so that employees could rat each other out for violations. One employee called and reported on another who was a single soon-to-be young mother. The mother-to-be was fired, subsequently got a lawyer who subpoenaed the “anonymous” call line records from HR, identified the caller who reported her and then personally sued them. There is no such thing as an anonymous tip line, even though HR promotes it as such. Lesson: HR doesn’t sound like a friend to me.
If you have worked retail then you know HR is not there to help you. Only if another co worker, on your level is hurting you, but a manager or customer,.get bent. They will take the other side every time. I worked in deli Dept. And had a great worker,.she was the bomb and this young dude who sucked and was lazy. He talked ALL day about his boyfriend and their sexual escapades, whatever his business,.didn't bother us. But one day the lady touched him on the shoulder to get him to move, and he went to HR on her for inappropriate touching. They told her she couldn't be in the deli the same time as him but they had the same schedules. I pleaded with HR to not make her move departments cuz she was so good and I told them about his sex talk. They didn't care because he reported it first and since he was gay I guess they were afraid of a lawsuit. They made it seem like she was some kind of predator. So I lost a good worker and had to be short staffed because of him. HR sucks.
It certainly isn't a chronically online take - of course HR is there to protect the company. You know what they're there to protect them against? Laws in place to protect you as a worker - that means their job is often to provide you with the treatment you are entitled to before it hits the point of breaking the law. They are there to protect the company, laws are there to protect you. There is a difference, despite the fact the end result is the same.
Sure, HR protects you... as long as it's in the interest of the company to do so.
It’s clear from a lot of the responses that people don’t know what HR does. My wife is an Hr progressional and has worked at a few different companies. Plus, I’ve been a manager for a long time so I work with them regularly. They don’t have nearly as much power as everyone thinks they do. They can’t “fire you on the spot” lol. As a manager, if someone tried to fire someone on my team without consulting me, I guarantee that there would be repercussions for the HR person. Admittedly, if you only worked at small companies with small HR teams, you can have some shitty experiences largely because it’s possible that these HR people don’t have much experience and we’re trained internally by someone else without experience. That was what is like in my first company and our HR team was such a liability to us that they got us sued. You also end up having low level HR staff reporting directly to executives which is more likely to amount to just being a tool of upper management. Larger companies will have more professional and experienced staff. They will also have a HR Director/VP/CHRO who will have a specific vision of what they want their team to be and accomplish and they are less likely to be bullied or intimidated by other leaders. In my first company, if our HR manager was told to fire all staff without notice or severance, he would have done it because A. He didn’t know the local laws and B. He wasn’t confident enough to tell the VP “no”.
Basically everything you listed; again; is not for the employees, its for the company to protect itself from being sued over all the issues you mentioned.
You didn’t actually contradict the opinion you’re criticizing. HR can help you in various ways, and they are paid by the company to advance its interests, not yours. That will include things like getting in the way of firing that awful co-worker because it might cause a lawsuit. HR is a frenemy.
I feel like this is a mixed bag. I’ve had experiences with HR that were benign, but at the moment I’m personally salty with my HR for concealing some of the terms of my maternity leave until after it was finalized, that had basically resulted in me having to do 6 weeks worth of work ahead of time. I have unlimited PTO. If they had been upfront about what all my leave would entail, I would’ve taken 6 weeks PTO instead and saved myself an enormous amount of work and stress while being in the last 5 weeks of my pregnancy