What is your HR experience?

[kgtest]

I've always wanted to be on the right side of HR. Back when I smoked that meant smokin a heater with the HR Gals. I know I don't want to be on their bad side.

Work with them on IT projects that are sensitive.

In terms of selecting benefits and hiring, depends on how motivated and experience HR is.

They work for management, to avoid lawsuits and unnecessary firings.

 

[misanman]

My experience with hr is mostly negative. The company where I had the most exposure used hr to drive eeo. Each employee was given a value number based on race and gender. Do you were either a 0, 1 or 2. Managers were held accountable to maintain a certain baseline number which sometimes led to bizarre personnel decisions.

 

[Rambler]

I worked for a global firm that provided certain HR services to other megacorps, but I have to say that for the most part, our internal HR was abysmal. For example, when I was transferred overseas, I demanded several conditions that were important to our family. However, when it came time to live up to those conditions, HR decided, for whatever reason, that I didn't need them or deserve them. We went back and forth, over and over again, until I threatened to put myself and my family on the next plane home...that got their attention. At the time, I was pretty specialized, and was the only person who could do that job in both English and the targeted Asian language. It would have cost them several times as much to hire a consulting firm than to just live up to our agreement.

Second serious instance as an example: in 2009 after being in target country for 8 years longer than originally agreed, I was still irreplaceable. I went to the CEO and told him that I would stay, but that we needed to work out an exit strategy, because I couldn't stay forever. We worked out an agreement for 4 more years, ending at the end of 2012. SR VP of HR was in the room, and we all agreed that a contract would be forthcoming. It didn't come, and didn't come, but thankfully the basics had been outlined in emails going back and forth. Then the CEO was fired...and I waited, and prodded, and waited, and prodded. Eventually, September of 2012 comes around, and I essentially went to the CEO and demanded the agreement in writing. I had a very good relationship with him, for the most part, and we worked well together. HR and legal finally got something to me, but it was missing a lot of things we had agreed, so we went back and forth again and again...thank goodness for those emails documenting the agreement from 2009. But HR still tried to suppress parts of what had been agreed. The way I saw it, HR was unhappy that someone would receive so much as a parting gift, but, it had all been agreed years before, and was largely based on my performance for those last 4 years (and my division had stellar performance compared to my peers' even during the recession. In any case, we signed the agreement just before I called the movers to come back home. I was not about to leave until they came thru with the documentation, and at the end of the day, the CEO was on my side in that respect, and he called them (HR) on their games.

All of that said, I did respect and support the HR dept in my division. At one point, I gave my HR dept head a letter of reprimand, telling him that if he didn't light a fire under his dept, he would be let go. He lit a fire, got things going the way they needed to be (turning the dept into a support team instead of a bureaucracy), and remains one of my best friends to this day.

 

[exnavynuke]

It has been my experience that HR personnel are generally trying to do the best they can and most care about the employees and what happens to them. Unfortunately, "best" is a term that is influenced by their basic need to protect the company first, protect the management's interests second, take care of day-to-day duties third, and take care of the employees (outside of their daily duties) as an ancillary responsibility.

The easiest way to get HR to care about you and want to help is to be in a place to sue the company or file an EEOC or have some other similar claim against the company. At that point, you'll get either a ton of support from HR or you'll get just enough so they can say they addressed the issue. The "smart" ones tend to do the latter.

Of course, if you get to that point, HR will have probably train the "offender(s)" on what they can and can't do. Such training generally includes things like "you can't do THIS to that person, but if you did this other thing to equally screw them over it would be perfectly legal". It may be illegal to punish someone for doing what everyone does in the department, but it's not illegal to change policy for everyone (even if the change to policy would only have a real impact on the person with protection from discrimination for instance).

 

[Breedlove]

As I have said I worked for a large Oil Company . I could complain but the HR lady was informative helpful and really seemed concerned. I could hardly understand her she had a strong accent so I thought she can't eat me . I asked her where she was from , she told me Saudi Arabia . I then asked her was she a U S citizen and she told me she was H1B . I could be mad but this lady had bottled water , a box of tissues and was playing some kind of low zen music. I was 3 weeks short of 25 years so you get a big bonus . I told her about it and she told me she would make sure I got it and I did.
The bad side was I was escorted by a guard to my truck , he peeled off my sticker . I never got to get anything from my desk ( they mailed it to my house ) and I never got to say goodbye . Welcome to the Oilfield !

 

[growing_older]

They have a tough job and I think generally do it pretty well though. Poor performers generally don't like HR. Good performers often like them a lot better.

I'm glad that you had some positive experiences with HR and it's important to hear the range of opinions. Insinuating that those of us who generally don't like HR are "poor performers" is offensive and not conducive to reasonable dialog.

 

[pb4uski]

As Mama says... if you can't say something good about someone then don't say anything at all. Enough said.

 

[Clone]

At previous megacorp, HR was primarily liability mitigation. There were a few good folks over the years, but the department (and their sister department- training and development) tended to collect folks that should have been fired, but because they checked the box on several diversity categories they were moved into HR. HR never really made any problems, they were basically the messenger for policies that were developed at the much higher levels of management. At the same time, they really couldn't do much to help out. Their role was to not get sued, not to ask questions about policy.

On the training side, there was some training that I wanted to attend but was never able to get put on the list. Turns out the training person was using the position to send her friends to the fancy training sessions that were at the resorts, fancy hotels, etc. There was not enough budget to support technical training. That did eventually catch up with her...

 

[brewer12345]

I'm glad that you had some positive experiences with HR and it's important to hear the range of opinions. Insinuating that those of us who generally don't like HR are "poor performers" is offensive and not conducive to reasonable dialog.

Yeah, what a load of fertilizer. By that criteria all of the high performing ERs here must have really been poor performers. Bullhockey.

 

[Taxman59]

Small company, one part time HR. I was looking at major surgery which would keep me out of work for 8-16 weeks. She made a point of telling me that after a week, I would be transferred to the LT disability plan. I pointed out that that was my choice and I would be using the 93 days of sick time I had accumulated. She tried to convince me that the benefit of tax free disability payments (@60% of pay) was better then 100% pay with 75% health insurance paid, 401k match and continuing to accrue vacation and holidays! When I confronted her with the numbers, she admitted that I was the only person who would figure that out, and she was trying to save the company $$$. So, I don't think highly of HR.

 

[frayne]

I've sat on both sides of that table, and my experience is that HR does the job it's told to do, in support of the agenda set out by the executive team.

Exactly.

 

[athena53]

When I confronted her with the numbers, she admitted that I was the only person who would figure that out, and she was trying to save the company $$$. So, I don't think highly of HR.

At least she was honest in the end. In my first job a coworker playing for a company-sponsored baseball team wrecked his knee sliding into first base and needed surgery. He asked HR if Worker's Comp would cover. (Our health insurance plan was pretty skimpy- this was back in the 1970s- and Worker's Comp would be pretty much 100% paid.) No, they said. He called the State Insurance Commissioner's office and found someone who knew the provisions of the Workers' Comp law. Yes, it WAS covered. Another case of HR trying to save the company money at the employee's expense.

 

[Danmar]

I'm glad that you had some positive experiences with HR and it's important to hear the range of opinions. Insinuating that those of us who generally don't like HR are "poor performers" is offensive and not conducive to reasonable dialog.

I reread my post and I can see why you might be offended. I apologize. Certainly, not my intention to imply that all people that had negative experiences with HR were poor performers. This is clearly not true. I just wanted to point out that HR has a tough job to do and by necessity needs to deal with poor performers. This is a challenge and would not likely result in happy feelings for those involved.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

My experience has been a mixed bag depending on the person. For the most part I would say the ones I worked with were not super efficient at their jobs.

One HR person, the one who was supposed to be dedicated to our department, filled her schedule up with optional committees, like the women's empowerment committee and some mucky mucks' retirement party planning committee, sent her schedule out to all the managers she was supposed to be working with to show she would have no time to ever meet with any of us. But working with our department managers on employee performance, hiring and firing was supposed to be her actual job - the only kind of work that was actually in her job description. Catbert would have gotten more done and had been more well liked.

All hiring, firing and reviews ground to a halt until things got escalated to the senior VPs of both departments and somebody had a chat with her. I would have thought somebody like her would just have been fired for cause after a week or two of simply refusing to do any actual work, but megacorps work in mysterious ways (and she was a personal friend of the CEO).

 

[brett]

Positive but declined rapidly over time to a definite negative. In many instances they became an impediment to the hiring and the firing process. One memorable occasion when, as a Canadian subsidiary, we were actually asked to collect data that was contrary to our laws. Another memorable occasion was when I caught a first level manager stealing product. HR wanted to give him a package because of his tenure. I refused. We gave him the statutory separation payment. They did not want 'trouble' and seemed immune to what other employees would think if we rewarded theft with a package.

They came up with so many interesting terms for firing people. Downsizing, transitioning, rightsizing, value recapture, span of control adjustment etc.

 

[Koolau]

My Megacorp HR's effectiveness and employee acceptance was a mixed bag - primarily driven by the Corp Goal/Policy Change de jour. Major changes in Corp. policy were always addressed by HR and that was when things typically went off the rails.

One memorable event was the policy change that all of us were now subject to for-cause AND random drug screening. I could have cared less, but the "employee information" sessions turned into a fiasco. One young woman had recently been rotated to HR. (HR was a box-check for most of those being artificially moved up to meet Federal guidelines. She was a double winner as she was not only female, but was also another check mark on the MGM check box.)

In the information session she informed us of the policy which was pretty much routine. Then she stated that we could no longer eat anything with poppy seeds in/on it. (Our cafeteria served poppy seed rolls AND poppy seed dressing FWIW.) There was a momentary stunned silence in the room as she explained that doing so would lead to a false positive drug test. The meeting (with perhaps 75 people in the room) quickly devolved into near bedlam and mutiny. Finally, the senior HR person with help from our manager got things back on track.

Two weeks later the young woman sent a terse email indicating that we should disregard her admonition not to eat poppy seed products. From then on (in her very short tenure in HR before being moved up) she was referred to by most of us as "False-Positive Rosa."

Our few "c*reer" HR folks were actually fairly effective and reasonably responsive - in seeing that Corp. policy was adequately administered as it applied to HR. HR was an arm of management, but the c*reer folks never made any bones about that. It was the fast-trackers through the organization who usually screwed things up before being advanced.

HR was only a very small reason for my desire to FIRE. YMMV

 

[big-papa]

Neutral at most companies, then extremely negative at another one. Lesson learned and now neutral to slightly negative.


In general as a manager I need them for
- what is the procedure to do x, y or z?
- make sure I stay out of any legal minefield.


The lesson learned
- even if you are on very friendly terms, remember, they are not your friend.
- assume nothing you say is in confidence and that anything you say may be repeated up the chain and assume that as it passes from person to person the information may actually evolve.
- under no circumstances should you ever vent in front of them


On the slightly negative side "flavor of the month" HR programs and methods to do performance reviews.

 

[athena53]

They came up with so many interesting terms for firing people. Downsizing, transitioning, rightsizing, value recapture, span of control adjustment etc.

Don't forget "synergies" to be realized in mergers and acquisitions!

 

[Curmudgeon]

My company 'restructured' and 'realigned'. Sounds more like chiropractic work than firing 1000's of people!

 

[template]

No offense to HR.

 

[Curmudgeon]

"If I had a gun with two bullets and I was in a room with Hitler, Bin Laden, and Toby [the HR rep]... I would shoot Toby twice." - Michael Scott

No offense!

 

[GravitySucks]

The whole w*rk world went to hell when the Personnel Dept became The HR Dept.
But if I was older I'd probably think it was when the Employment Office became the Personnel Dept.

 

[foxfirev5]

Let's be perfectly clear - HR is NOT an advocate for the employee. It exists only to protect the interests of the company. PERIOD. Use them to your advantage and fight only if necessary.

 

[ShortInSeattle]

I worked in HR for the first half of my career. I went in because I cared about fairness and I was interested in the legal/ethical aspects of business. I left because I felt that HR wasn't the place to make positive change happen, it's much more of a CYA (cover your hiney) kind of field, and it tends to attract "schoolmarm" types who are more concerned with rule-following than the impact of those rules.

HR people (even when they have the best intentions) are placed in the difficult role between management and employees. Management calls the shots, HR advocates for the right thing where they can, but it's rare that a company gives HR actual decision making authority. That means you often end up being a mouthpiece for policies you disagree with, which is an uncomfortable position to be in. (this can happen to managers too)

Internal politics can also be ugly. HR folks have very little power, so they can cling to what they've got with ferocity. "Queen bee" phenomenon.

HR is a tiny bit like policing, in that you've got people who are supposed to build trust and watch out for the little guy, but they are also required to be the one who holds you to the rules and turns you over for punishment or investigation when you mess up. HR people are set up for failure, because these roles (building trust & administering punishment) are always in conflict. Why trust someone, when they might whisper to your boss what you said?

I could go on and on.... but I won't.

SIS

 

[brewer12345]

HR in a nutshell:


At my last place of employment, word came down from on high that a mentoring program should be set up and they solicited volunteers. HR was in charge of administering this formal program and they selected mentors and mentees from the [-]suckers[/-] volunteers. In our branch office the mentors were told to show up for a training session run by an HR drone from the central hivemind. She flies in, sits down, starts talking about the importance of mentoring, how it can help mentees in their careers with our employer, etc. She then spends the next half hour of the session illustrating the importance of mentoring by describing how her mentee screwed up and needed mentoring in a serious way because she showed up at the office wearing open-toed shoes (against the dress code; inexplicably, something known as peep-toed shoes are acceptable).