Who would have imagined that a department called "human resources" wouldn't have your best interests in mind?
If you think about the phrasing of the title “Human Resources”, it makes sense that they are not your friends.
Let’s look at the definition of the word resource:
resource /rē′sôrs″, -zôrs″, rĭ-sôrs′, -zôrs′/
noun
- Something that is available for use or that can be used for support or help. “The local library is a valuable resource.”
- An available supply, especially of money, that can be drawn on when needed.
Those definitions describe disposable commodities; easily replaceable. The adjective “human” simply refines what type of disposable and replaceable commodities that the department deals with.
If you want someone to be your advocate your best interests at a job, you’ll need to hire a lawyer. In the meantime, make sure you take notes, and follow everything up with an email (bcc your personal email a copy of each correspondence).
If your state allows one-party consent, you can even record conversations; be very aware that despite being legal, it will likely get you fired with prejudice if anybody finds out you’ve been recording them without their knowledge.
It could also be interpreted as "resources for humans", but you're spot on
That's why forward-looking and thoughtful tech companies call them "People ops," which changes absolutely nothing about what they do.
Where I'm working they rebranded HR to ✨"People & Culture"✨ so I don't know what you mean. With that name, they simply must have our best interests in mind instead of always siding with the higher ranking individual.
Weird, at my company they changed it to "flesh asset repair and removal."
Found the meatbag Amazon warehouse employee
Aperture science?
This was a triumph! I'm making a note here, "Huge success!"
Most functional HR departments actually do have the workers best interests at heart, because protecting the company and not screwing over workers usually has a ton of overlap. But HR does a lot more than handle workplace disputes.
I had a boss and mentor who happened to have a hot headed streak. He lost his temper with his boss during a meeting and was brought into a meeting with HR over it. He was able to spin the meeting with HR so it became as much about his boss's failures to be an effective leader as it was about his inappropriate behavior so it ultimately worked out for him
"If you're going to start a meeting with fat shaming me, then yes; I am going to fire back. Don't dish it out if you can't take it yourself.
If you have a problem with that, we can get the lawyers involved and discuss it further."
But I also live somewhere that actually has labour laws and where 'at-will' employment is a ridiculous concept. If you want to fire someone (after their three months probation), you've gotta have a good reason and you better document it throughly.
"At will" isn't as magical as people think.
If you terminate an employee without documented cause, you still have to pay them unemployment.
In practice this just means that your documented cause will be fabricated.
It doesn't really need to be fabricated. It's stupid easy to build a case to legitimately fire anyone.
they can just say they're downsizing, or the employee hasn't been performing well, or any other lie. as long as they don't specifically mention that you're being terminated for something illegal you'll never stand a chance in court.
that being said. record every meeting with hr, they slip up more than you think
That's simply not true.
If you're laid off they have to pay unemployment. If you aren't performing well they have to show records proving it when you file unemployment and they try to deny the claim.
Please don't talk about topics on which you're clearly uninformed, because the belief that someon3 can be fired for anything with no recourse keeps people from filing for unemployment when they're 100% eligible.
All "at will" means is that they can fire you for any reason or no reason. They may still be required to pay unemployment, but they don't have to keep you on staff.
I'm in PA, so yeah unfortunately this is how it goes. hats off to y'all in states with slightly better laws, but this is how it goes in my state. I speak from personal experience as well as the experience of my friends.
and all that documentation can be easily fabricated or cherry picked to try to make a point that isn't there.
it doesn't matter how the system is supposed to work, the laws in this country and PA especially are so fucked that it very rarely works out in the employees favor. you can potentially get unemployment, but wrongful termination suits very rarely go anywhere.
No, that's not how it works in PA or any state.
You're incorrect regarding unemployment eligibility as it relates to at-will employment status, and since you don't know what you're talking about you need to shut the fuck up before you discourage people from even attempting to pursue their rights when they lose their job.
lol. you sound like someone who has never tried to file for any of that shit. from another one of your comments, sounds like you had some corporate experience in firing people.
your experience in the corporate world firing people is not what people on the other side of the axe experience.
people should absolutely file for unemployment and pursue wrongful termination suits if possible. but your expectation that things will fall into their lap is unrealistic and will cost people money if they lose an appeal and are required to pay their benefits back.
I'm surprised so many people still don't realize that HR exists to protect the company, not the employee. Yes, since a bad or reckless manager can put the company at significant risk, sometimes they will take the side of the employee, but not because it's their charter.
Everyone uses this cliche. Nobody seems to understand it.
a bad or reckless manager can put the company at significant risk
Yes. In this circumstance, the manager opened the company up to a lawsuit with his comments. It would have protected the company to punish him or have him take some sort of class.
You can just say that HR is usually bad at their jobs. "Protecting the company not the employee" is completely meaningless here.
No, there's more to it than that. Immediately taking the manager to task gives more credence to an employee lawsuit. Their "best" first approach is to talk to the employee, even scold them. What they want is for the issue to go away without the company getting bad press or a legal issue. It's not that they're bad at their job, it's that their job has zero to do with being an employee advocate.
They might also scold the manager, but that will happen off the record and behind closed doors.
Also if someone says something fucked up and you clap back and they report it. YES HR WILL SPEAK TO YOU!
If you want to nail someone with the rulebook you cant respond like two people talking shit on twitter. You have to call them out on what they said respectfully and professionally, preferably with witnesses or go straight to HR.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Its also a big contributor as to why a lot of people think HR are useless. Once you respond in any way that could be considered unprofessional you just made it messy and increased the risk to the company of doing anything other than issuing slap on the wrist warnings.
Take the meme for example, now the company has to make a morality decision on whats worse, an unprompted and inappropriate but not deliberately hurtful comment from a manager vs a deliberate and highly personal barb from an employee to a manager... I can see the warning letters for both of them from here.
The fact that it's called human ressources instead of something less dystopian should be a hint. If you want an actual ally as an employee you gotta unionize.
Exactly. They're not there for you.
Humans are the resource.
I'm kind of surprised (yes, naively) that some people aren't even aware enough of the wider culture to think twice about saying things like that.
That's right. Just imagine that you start a business and you start hiring employees and at some point you have so many employees that it becomes difficult to manage and sometimes the employees start fighting or doing other inappropriate things. So, you hire some other employees to to create an HR department to make sure that your employees don't become a liability for your company. See?
A coworker drunkenly made out with my face at a work event and HR tried to send me to a sexually harassment seminar so I could "learn what sexually assault really is"
Another great quote from that meeting: "if you knew she was a sloppy drunk, why were you hanging out with her?"
HR is there to protect the company - not you
Ayyyy~ what the fuck?
It was crazy. What made it worse was that I didn't even report it...my friend was so upset about it, he told his boss.
When the HR director asked me what I wanted to happen to the girl, I told her NOTHING. I don't want her fired or anything, I don't even work directly with her. Then she asked why, if I didn't want anything to happen, I reported it? BITCH I DIDN'T I was going to find a new job and move the fuck on with my life
"I wanted it documented so if she is involved in another incident, this one can be referenced"
That last line is the key take-away for dealing with ANY HR.
Never forget who signs their paychecks.
Yes. The acronym stands for Human Resources and it'd be a stretch to think they consider us human!
Jokes aside, I actually really liked most of the leadership at that company. I really only disliked the CEO and HR director.
one time i had to interrupt an hr sensitivity seminar because the trainer casually threw down an ethnic slur for me
What the fuck?
Did he not know it was a slur? Was he ignorant, or just plain awful is what I'm wondering?
she seemingly forgot the word "biracial" and decided to go with the first thing on her mind
Oh, shit, apparently I'm nearly as bad. I didn't realize that was offensive. I absolutely see how it is after thinking about it, though. Thankfully I don't think I've ever actually called anyone that.
I used to feel bad for Toby that Michael was constantly shitting on him. That is, until I encountered corporate HR. And now I too hate so much about the things that Toby chooses to be.
True lore: in one episode, Toby says that he was actually training to be a priest, but he gave it up to hook up with a woman. (who later left him and is now his ex.) Then he just took the first job that he saw. ...almost as if he was guided to it by a higher power?
So canonically Toby is in a living hell because he rejected his god to indulge his fornicatory lust.
Why are you the way you are?
Toby's from HR, which means he's not a part of our family. Also he's divorced so he's not really a part of his family either.
HR is employed by the company to protect the company/capital.
A regulatory watchdog (so not on company's payroll) would be the one to protect the workers. Even a union could to a certain degree.
I had an elected official chuck pens at the HR lady and reference her recent weight loss during a training about professional behavior in the workplace. Unironically. But the HR lady laughed it off and then kind of flirted with the elected official and a program manager.
He was already on the way out but it did provide a good orientation for the workplace culture.
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