I worked in HR for a while and 80% of the job was telling managers/execs “you can’t do that to an employee”. It was defending the employee, arguing for better programs, planning events for employees/associates/team members. I paid for a Christmas event out of my own pocket one year because I was told there was no funding. I never got badmouthed or trashed by a manager. But after fighting everyday for associates it was really disheartening to see them say stuff like the person youre replying too. It’s one reason people who aren’t corporate shills get out of HR. You spend your day advocating for people and they turn around and spit in your face. After awhile you just ask yourself why am I turning myself inside out for these people who hate me?
Comment on Cloudflare Employee records her final meeting where HR tries to fire her
pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 5 months agoThat really isn’t true, and you would know that if you were actually familiar with HR.
HR, for stuff like this, is just the messenger. Some exec told them to fire people, and gave them a directive on who to fire. The HR reps couldn’t answer her questions because they likely don’t know the answer.
Yes, the job of HR is to protect the company, but mostly that’s protecting the company from the company breaking labor laws.
But, I’m sure I’ll get downvoted to hell because the hive mind loves to shit on HR, which is exactly what the execs are wanting. They’re scapegoats.
BottleOfAlkahest@lemmy.world 5 months ago
TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I’ve literally never worked at a company where HR advocates for the workers. In 20 years, I haven’t seen it happen a single time.
asqapro@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
The HR team at the company I work for absolutely advocates for me and my coworkers. Their job is to protect the company’s interests and the workers being empowered is in line with the company’s interests. A close friend and coworker had a PM try to deny her benefits (both PTO and insurance) and HR stepped in on her behalf and forced the company to give her what she was owed. The HR team is always available to answer questions about how insurance works and how to plan for retirement, plus they go out of their way to host a yearly Christmas party and other major events. The companies you worked at might have had bad HR teams, but that doesn’t mean every HR team is bad.
spacecowboy@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
HR is to prevent liability, not to protect or advocate for workers. Sometimes those lines end up crossing, but it’s not the job of HR.
GilgameshCatBeard@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
This totally goes against what people want to believe. It’s not being downvoted because it’s untrue, it’s being downvoted because the kids don’t like it.
spacecowboy@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Oh come off of it. Your job is to tell those managers and executives “you can’t do that”. You are there to prevent liability. I’m not calling you a bad person or class trader like above, but that’s what your job is.
jimbo@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Nothing you said contradicts the claim that HR people are class traitors. HR only cares about labor law so far as they can achieve management’s goals without landing the company in legal hot water. It’s absolutely not about any concern for the people themselves.
KevonLooney@lemm.ee 5 months ago
No one in any business cares about their customers or coworkers any more than they have to. Why would you think that the person at the supermarket cares about the weird story you have to tell them?
HR doesn’t care about you because they don’t know you. Your coworkers barely care about you. Do not think people you work with are your friends. HR has no moral reason to do anything other than their jobs. Don’t rely on them for legal advice. They are just a mouthpiece for what has already been decided.
ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I’ve interacted with lots of HR employees over the years. And for quite a while my wife worked in that field, so I’ve had some ‘inside’ insight into the field. And I largely agree with you.
Like with any field, there are good people and bad people in there. My wife (and most of her colleagues) was one of the good ones. She intervened many times at her old job to stop out of control managers from firing store employees for bullshit reasons. Yes, part of that was to avoid the company getting into legal trouble for it. But an equal part was because she wanted to help these employees, because they were clearly being mistreated by their managers. And while not to that level, I’ve been helped by other decent HR people who went above and beyond company policies to help me during things like bereavement and healthcare needs.
I’ve also dealt with some absolute shit-heel HR people. People who would spend almost all day spying on employees using CCTV to try to catch them doing something - anything - that they could write them up for. People who would go out of their way to hide and ignore evidence of managers vindictively punishing employees who they (the managers) didn’t like. People would use their power as HR professionals to exploit vulnerable employees for sexual motives.
It’s a mixed bag. To say all HR people are good is facile (side note: I know you weren’t doing that). And equally, to slate all HR employees is also wrong.
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Yes, the job of HR is to protect the company, but mostly that’s protecting the company from the company breaking labor laws.
No, it’s protecting the company from the consequences of breaking labor laws like the WARN Act, which may well apply in this employee’s case.
Companies love to break the law. Wage theft is bigger than any other form of theft in the US. What companies don’t like is to be exposed breaking labor laws, or suffer wage audits, or having to answer to pesky individual suits from disgruntled workers they assume couldn’t fight back but miraculously did.
Every single HR rep I have ever known – and that includes the ones I knew as friends outside work – made a knowing and openly acknowledged choice to check their conscience at the door to accept and keep those HR jobs.
You can justify it however you like, but it’s a choice, each and every time you lie, and it is for HR reps too. It’s just a more direct path to the paycheck and yearly bonuses for them: they literally get paid to lie, to hide, to fraudulently conceal illegal acts, and especially patterns of illegal acts, taking place within the company they represent, and to destroy and deny the existence of evidence whenever the rare employee who can fight back raises their head above the parapet.
And as a person who spent years in IT, I can’t even begin to tell you the actual illegal (and completely heartless and amoral) shit I have personally laid eyes on, like when I temporarily had to work at someone else’s desk on a network issue: a low-level but long-term housekeeping employee who was injured on the job had asked to return to light duty for a few weeks in a letter with medical documentation attached, and I had to sit there with it all spread out on the desk in front of me with a sticky note attached to it saying “Let’s draw a line under this, find a reason to fire her” staring me in the face.
If someone literally wants to lie for a living and be the dog that eats the other dog today, that’s on them. But stop trying to act like that’s NOT exactly how it is.
MotoAsh@lemmy.world 5 months ago
“Don’t hate HR! We’re not the master, just his trained attack dogs!”
winterayars@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Being a shield against the decisions of upper management is the kind of class traitor work the person above is talking about. HR’s job is taking that kind of decision and turning it into something that can be executed with the least likelihood of an office shooting or lawsuit. Whether either of those things are warranted or not.
alienanimals@lemmy.world 5 months ago
HR do the execs’ dirty work.
Shame you’re not intelligent enough to realize that. I guess that’s why you work in HR. Don’t be their scapegoat. It’s literally that simple.
Fizz@lemmy.nz 5 months ago
Just don’t get a job in HR and no one can get fired. It’s that easy guys.
HR is a legitimate job and serves and important purpose in the structure of a company. You can’t dismiss it by saying their purpose is to serve rich assholes because that’s the purpose of every job at a company. That’s work, that’s most jobs.
owen@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
Except HR’s entire purpose is to insulate management. They’re not exactly producing anything
Fizz@lemmy.nz 5 months ago
Production of goods is not relevant at all there are plenty of valid jobs that do not produce anything. Having an HR department in a large company allows other departments to focus on what they are good at and have HR handle all the employee contracts, hiring, firing, complaints, performance reviews, leave etc.
rwhitisissle@lemmy.world 5 months ago
HR exists to insulate people with real authority in a business from those who suffer from their whims. In a lot of companies, your job is to get yelled at so some ghoulish C level executive isn’t forced to strain their neurons processing the emotional reality of the fact that their decisions impact real people in negative ways. It might disrupt their “objectivity” and make it harder to issue layoffs next time.
son_named_bort@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It’s basically customer service for employees.
dabu@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Well, if you’re working for that company in any other role your purpose is to serve the rich assholes anyway.
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Better yet, get a job in HR and sabotage the company from the inside!
Though, the reality is that most menial HR jobs are like any other menial non-decision maker jobs, in any other area of the business, so your argument is just as applicable to, and just as disingenuous, for most roles in any business — e.g. like arguing janitor’s at EvilCorp are complicit class traitors because they enrich EvilCorp and facilitate it’s success.
MotoAsh@lemmy.world 5 months ago
No. Most jobs do not directly involve enacting bad worker related decisions.
An engineer will never, ever come in and fire you for some made up reason. HR will.
You are conflating the fact that HR does not need to exist like the jobs that do the actual work need to exist. They are not the same. Ever.
oce@jlai.lu 5 months ago
Wouldn’t that also apply to engineers working for those rich asshole? Because there are a lot of engineers working for rich assholes here who like to trash HR, starting with me.
MotoAsh@lemmy.world 5 months ago
No. What? HR does company dirty work. Engineers do actual work. What the fuck is the relation there??
oce@jlai.lu 5 months ago
They both prostitute themselves to serve the rich to get more money even though they are educated enough to have the freedom to choose whom to work for.
fushuan@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Anyone in the company is serving the rich assholes fucking everyone else over. All the money they are producing goes to the rich assholes.