There seems to be a common pattern of HR being disliked in firms and workplaces across different industries no matter where you’re focused on.
To be honest during my apprenticeship/internship HR weren’t too bad and would have a laugh with you, hell one of them loved the dark humor from one of our technicians.
Is there something I’m missing that HR are soul less and will protect the interests of a firm before yourself? I’m not sure as I think not all HR people are terrible, just comes with the territory so to speak
What are your thoughts on the matter?
What do YOU think of them as a department from your current and past experiences?
My wife also works in HR and I now work in an adjacent department, EHS. I came to post pretty much the same as you did.
I will add that it’s interesting reading these threads and seeing the conspiracy theory type comments uniformly painting HR across the world. They speak as if the employees that comprise HR have no agency or are uniformly of one mindset, protecting the company at all costs, even though that doesn’t benefit them personally at all. It’s a simple solution for a complex situation, so it sounds good but doesn’t hold up under the merest scrutiny.
We get the same shit in EHS, how we’re just there to prevent company liability and don’t really care. It’s quite frustrating since it’s anything but true and tends to be perpetuated by employees who don’t actually engage with EHS, so they don’t actually know who we are or what we do. Reading through the comments, it’s much the same here.
Most EHS departments are like most HR departments. Perception management to benefit 1) the department and 2) the company. Any possible way EHS can use lax regulations (most places outside the EU) to avoid accountability, it will happen in nearly every circumstance.
I worked in EHS for a time. The amount of scab, toxic and corrupt behavior I saw made me NOPE out of that career field real fast. EHS got more people fired and swept more incidents under the rug than anyone else. Masters of gaslighting and virtue signaling.
Of course there will be exceptions, and I’m sure you’re one of them.
I don’t know how you expected the Everyone Here Sucks department to be a good idea /s
Seriously!! Not my smartest move.
One comment is anecdotal. A million is a statistic.
If you’re suggesting different, then I’d point you to the word ‘exception’, and also suggest that HR has an image problem deeply rooted in a conflict of interest that it needs to solve. And if it wants to support the workers it will need to be funded by the workers to remove that conflict, and once it supports and is supported by the workers in a group, it’s a union.