O O Ø O O O O
Debut
Pint Day debutante Kev Needham wastes little time in taking a swing at corporate HR departments.
Howdy, I be kev. You haven't seen me here before, and I'm a little nervous. I have neither the style nor West-worldly experience of those who have stood on this podium before, so this may be a little dry. It'll get better as I practice, kinda like the difference between tykes and peewees in hockey. I'll be ankle burning through this, and hopefully I won't trip and fall on my head. That said, away I go...
I'm soon to be unemployed, and it's my choice. I have thought this one through pretty carefully, and have solicited opinions from my friends and family on whether or not I'm doing the right thing. My dad took a little convincing, but everyone I care about agrees I'm doing the right thing for me and my little brain. I have been thinking about making the move since before Christmas, and have even kept my management appraised since that time of my feelings towards the job. They've been cool about the situation, understand why I'm going, and have even gone so far to say that they support me in my decision because I've kept them in the loop the whole time. I looked to HR a couple times for help in acclimating to this place, but they only gave me links to their intranet, so I gave up on them.
This morning I got a lovely personalised *cough* email from the HR drone asking me to fill out an online exit interview form1. She indicated the pearls of wisdom I inscribed upon said form would be used to make my place of employment better for everyone in the future. I read the questions in the form, and they had nothing to do - at least I don't think they did - with why I was leaving, so I questioned how it would help make the place I'm leaving better.
You've probably filled one of these things out when you decided it was time to move on to greener pastures, or even when you've been put out to pasture. Did you ever wonder if the people who read it gave a damn, or if they even read it at all? After reading the questions on the form, I sure wondered. In fact, based on this stupid form, I wonder if Human Resources has any clue why they exist.
I expect this from banks, not the company I am busting my ass for.
If you looked at the questions you'd see an effort to find general reasons so they can pidgeonhole my departure in a category. It also asked for a whole bunch of information I thought HR should already have (we have a dedicated resource for our whole 16 people, you'd think they'd be able to pick the one person leaving out). Nowhere does it ask me if I believed in my group, its purpose, its people, or the principles that guide it. Nowhere does it ask me what I thought of anyone outside of my group or the company as a whole, and the questions seem to be slanted so that blame can be laid on individuals, if that is necessary. In short, I didn't see the exercise being capable of adding any long-term value to the company, only in making HR's categorization of my departure easier.
I know, I'm too harsh. But goddamn it HR pisses me off wherever I go. For once I would like to feel that the HR department of any company gives a rats ass about my—or anyone other than their own— well being. I've been through two moves in three years, both of which HR said they'd help me out on but never delivered. With both moves I've had problems with benefits, moving, acclimating, finding housing, etc. and have asked HR for help because they proudly told me their role was to make my transition seamless. Their help in both cases was to give me a phone number or a web link to a broker. Whoop-dee-doo, thanks a load, have a donut.
I will also share some of the blame in my moves going not-so-smoothly, but I have a job to do and tend to concentrate on that, not in the little details of getting to work—mebbe I need a wife. They're also really good at quoting “Company Policy” if your problem will require effort on their part to right a wrong or fix something that's broken. I expect this from banks, not the company I am busting my ass for.
My favourite unpleasant HR moment was the first time I had to let someone go in a Reduction In Force exercise. I was called at about 10AM one sunny morning and told that a person in my group was being laid off, and that HR was going to be “processing the exits” that day. I asked when they would be at my building (we were in a different building than HR), to which I got the response “umm... you'll have to bring him here, that's where we are.” We argued for a bit, and it became clear they weren't coming to where we were, so I would have to go there. When asked what reason I should give for bringing the employee to the other building, the wonderful suggestion of “make something up, and we'll handle it when you get here” (or words to that effect).
Excuse me, but what the fuck do you get paid to do?
Real nice. I like to sleep at night, so I told the employee everything that was going on before we left, and why we were going to the other building. That was a really shitty mile-long-walk, and I'll always remember it. The exit process was not much better, with the HR people ill-equipped to answer any questions the employees had (several time the Exiter looked to me for answers—like I knew). The whole thing stank, and I felt that my friends in HR were ill-prepared, unprofessional, and showed not the slightest bit of common courtesy or compassion to anyone in the process.
There are other examples: someone in HR writing me up for having a sig file that “promoted a hostile work environment,” and seeing the same person use scorching, profanity-laced, personal attacks on individuals in public the next week; calling HR for help with registering for benefits using an online system that didn't work and being given the tech support number of the outsourced firm that provided the service—excuse me, but what the fuck do you get paid to do—; being told that a compensation agreement in place died when the person who made the deal on behalf of the company was removed—sorry no negotiation. The list goes on and on and on. I'm sure you have your own HR horror stories, so I'll cut it short there.
All in all, I think the majority of Human Resources “professionals” I've met suck at how they carry out their responsibilities. There have been notable exceptions—Carmela, Rachel, Matt, Jim, you all know who you are—who bust their cans to help people out, but they are the very small minority. The lion's share of folks I've met in HR would sooner treat you as an asset (like a lamp) than a person. Maybe I can be a light fixture next go-around, it would probably get me plugged in faster. Even the name "Human Resources" is galling - as a wise guide to running a company points out, "people aren't resources, they're people". HR needs to treat them as such.
I'd like all those HR professionals to go back and take a good, hard look at how they treat the folks they're supposed to serve, and why they're doing what they're doing (hint: People). I know a lot of people looking for jobs who would jump at the chance to make a difference. Unfortunately for the masses who have to deal with it, HR is a required service in every company, and the odds of them getting sacked for poor performance is slim-to-none. Most of the people in big HR departments have been there forever and crawled up the corporate ladder to their protected slots. They use the system that's always been used, and the chances of it changing from up top are pretty slim because it might imperil them.
Do what's right, not what's easy.
My view on HR is pretty simple: I am an employee who, from time to time, will need help with dealing with the company I work for. HR is supposed to provide that help. My preconception is that HR balances the needs of the employee with the needs of the company, and they help employees new and old wade through the reams of red tape, paper, and policies the company (and in particular, HR themselves) puts in front of them. That's not what I see today, and I really wish it would change.
On the off chance that you work in the HR field and come across this little vent, here are my suggestions for how you may think about changing your department to make your company a place I'd like to work (of course, I realise that you may not want me there after reading this :) ):
- Define what your mission/goal/vision is, that way people know what you're about, and can hold you to it. Have you ever seen one of these in your department? Me neither.
- Hire folks who care more about people and less about numbers, and who understand the spirit of the law, not just the letter of it.
- Remember that the voice on the other end of the phone/letter/email/desk is someone with a problem, not an inconvenience for you to pass off or ignore.
- Give your customers the ability to rate you, and make those numbers public no matter how good or bad they may be.
- Seek compensation based on client satisfaction, not fixed annual operating budgets. Being overhead sucks for a lot of reasons, and getting paid money because you are an essential service regardless of the job causes you to act like dictators, not as support. You'll get a lot more respect, and your clients might even like you if you both know you're doing a good job.
- When dealing with your customers, put yourself in their shoes and treat them like you'd want to be treated in that situation.
- Remember that one of your duties to the company is to keep good people by helping them out.
- Speak the truth. Don't use legalspeak or qualifications to cover your bases. Be honest and let people know what the options are, as well as the outcomes.
- Do what's right, not what's easy.
It's really sad that my view of HR is tarnished the way it is. I will be expecting any HR department in a company I work in to suck, and will take the steps to cover my ass moving forward. I know the modus operandi, and will do my best to do their job for them, because I feel they won't look out for my best interests, only theirs. That's really wrong.
Please prove me wrong and show me you care not only about me, but the rest of the people who work around me. Don't be afraid to raise the issues you collect with the rest of the company. Make the executive and management aware of things that frighten and anger the employees and suggest ways to fix it. HR has been relegated to a grind, take the reins and change it to something that adds value instead of apathy.
Ok, I'm done. Amazing how one little e-mail at the start of the day can make me spout off so much and think about so much bad over a long period of time. I guess that's what soapboxes are for.
Tuesday, April 23,
2002
PD DXLIV
1 It wasn't even an online form—it was a word document that had some text boxes I could fill in, but most of the questions were multiple choice with no text boxes—I was supposed to use the graphic tools in Word to draw circles around the answers I liked best. Morons. We've come oh so far with HTML forms, haven't we?