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“I don’t hire men. They’re too ambitious.”
Is that a straight or a bent shaft?
Exit interview. How honest should I be?
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exactly - HR 's job is to protect the company. That's why unions were formed
Except unions existed before "HR" or "Personnel" when all you had was basically payroll at a company.
HR is responsible for engaging employees and protecting the company. It’s a balance. When HR is given the tools to succeed and the top level drives a positive culture, magic happens. HR can be a thankless job.
Totally agree. I think I’ve just been noticing a less than positive culture around caring for people.
Yup. HR is for the company. The fact they call them the “people team” in some places is comical.
As HR, it is my job to protect the company - from shooting itself in the foot by making stupid moves on the people side of things. HR is complicated. At the end of the day, I feel like I influence the company to make things better for our employees. Don’t count us out.
Exactly! Demonstrating transparency when possible and making decisions with input from people across the org is very important. From what I can tell, most decisions are not made by asking people what they would want. Doesn’t mean you have to do everything everyone wants, but at least hear people out.
Taking a master’s level HR management course right now, nearing the end of the semester, and this premise has not been brought up (surprise!) lol. In fact, the picture has been painted of quite the opposite regarding the role of HR. For background, I have 8 years of work (corporate) experience, so Im just finding the inconsistencies between real world and academia somewhat entertaining.
Yup, agreed. They were built to protect the best interest of the company.
I feel the people team often want to help people in the organisation, to make things better, at the same time as protect the business.
On the former, the original post applies to an extent. It’s for the people team to support the leaders of the business to run a ‘happier’ business/ teams. Not my adjective. People team can’t do it alone.
When it comes to directly helping employees, what the people team don’t consider is that most employees will never trust the people team because of their role in protecting the firm. The people team think that straddling this contradiction is fine but honestly it doesn’t work. Have long been an advocate of splitting the people function into two: the side that supports people (L&D, well-being, etc.) and the legal side that protects the firm. That way employees know which face of the function they’re meeting. Employee support or business protection. I think that’s heresy for most people teams though. In general I think they hate being seen as the police, even though it’s exactly what they are. It would also raise questions about what information passed between the two teams.
Human. Capital.
Only talk to HR after you've talked to your lawyer and document everything.
Oh gosh