The Ugly Truth About HR

now i know this is a very hotly debated subject but i want to share with you the ugly truth about human resources hey everybody it's brian from a life after layoff and today i want to talk to you about the human resources function and i want to dispel some myths for you and i speak with experience because i've worked for the last 20 years of my career in human resources functions specifically in both human resource management and in recruiting for some of the world's largest and most well-known companies and also some smaller less well-known companies so i've got a full gamut of experience and i want to share with you some of the perspective that i have and as i go through and i read a lot of the comments that come in there is an underwriting flavor of bitterness and um anger i guess maybe and jade maybe jaded is a better way to describe it from people about the human resources function and i i honestly totally get it because there's kind of a there's kind of a viewpoint of well we thought human resources was supposed to be on our side they're supposed to be an advocate and at a fundamental level that's true but i want to kind of give you a bit of a broader perspective let's paint it with a little bit broader brush and give you the un the undisclosed or the ugly truth about human resources and what its true function is in an organization now i will use a disclaimer and say i don't agree with everything that human resources does even though i've worked in that field i am an employee advocate i've always been an employee advocate to the degree that you know the employee is doing the right thing obviously if you come into a situation where you're not acting properly and you have an adverse employment decision you really need to own that and i will say that the human resources function as a whole a vast majority of them are very compassionate people who really believe strongly in doing the right thing being an employee advocate being all those things that you kind of had this this preconceived notion of but there is a layer to the human resources function that you should be aware of and i i want to give you a little bit more insight from kind of peeling back the curtain a little bit about what that is so i think that the again this there's a misconception that human resources is your friend you can go off to them and you can you can uh can confide in them and your issues and all of this stuff but i think what you have to keep in mind is yeah yes you can do that and if you are experiencing issues and in particular if they're legal issues or um you know those types of things that are very sensitive you should go to the human resources department because it's going to at least kind of cya if you if you kind of catch my drift rather than trying to deal with some of those very sticky situations i'm thinking like harassment i'm thinking like uh it's like anything that would you'd be reporting anything that would be illegal things like that you definitely don't want to internalize that not and let them continue to happen and not say anything because you can actually put yourself into a bigger issue if you don't but if you are dealing in a situation where maybe it's performance related or you have an issue with your boss or you know all those kinds of things you know you really need to think about it strategically and i and that's where i wanted to make this video because i see again i see a lot of these comments coming in from people who are frustrated and bitter in fact somebody keeps on leaving the same comment over and over again about their three um the three people that they can't trust or that they hate the most and it's like lawyers and and some something else and uh human resources people which you know if if you feel that strongly i i mean i see the comments and i i on some level i can get it um but i also see the comments when i see people that are particularly bitter i my first reaction is you probably had an adverse employment decision happen against you and you haven't really worked or processed that so let's take ownership in our situations that things happen in the business world and it can be very cutthroat and we just have to know that going in and that's why i set up this channel to really talk about how to manage yourself how to how to take ownership of your career and really how to set yourself up so that you are in control versus allowing other people around you to be in control so you should take ownership and be and reflect very honestly back on yourself if you were in a situation where you were treated or you you feel jaded by the human resources function you know know that there are there are indeed 100 people in those in those functions that you know maybe aren't the best people or the best per people people if that makes sense um because i've experienced that in my career where i've had to deal with things whereas like head scratching and going like how could you be so cold or how could you be so calculated and it just it happened so i think it's important to know that that does happen but for the vast majority of issues that happen in a work setting that human resources in particular gets involved in there's usually a degree of yeah that's probably happening some of the coldness and some of the calculatedness but there's also a degree of you probably did stuff in your career too that or in the situation that you're in that got you there to begin with and so it's hard for people to step backward and look objectively at a situation and then be able to apply the learning from it because they're so emotionally invested into the situation that it's easy just to lash out and blame other people so i'm gonna just say that i mean i've had people tell me on my channel that uh hr is the enemy and i kind of laugh about that i mean i don't take it personally because i get that it's easy to lash out the guy on the internet on the on youtube that uh who's talking about this stuff but i do find it funny that people i'm sitting here giving you advice on how to manage this stuff and how to steer your way through and really give you deep and true and intimate knowledge that is truly from behind the scenes yet i'm the enemy so um i don't again it doesn't hurt my feelings or you know whatever but um if you are somebody that feels compelled enough to write a nasty email or a nasty um comment and give me a thumbs down because of this i think you really need to look at yourself and go okay why is it that you feel that way why is it that you that where's the root cause of it and what part of that root cause of the frustration did you create yourself because you're not gonna be able to move beyond it and you're not gonna be able to have a functioning career if you can't like transmute that energy and understand it and then position yourself differently moving forward it's almost like you if you react that way it's because you're wounded you know you had a wound somewhere that you have not healed or not worked your way through the energy of it and i think it's really important to do that because you're just going to go into your next opportunity and you're going to be jaded and you're going to be um kind of uh very skeptical and it's going to show and you kind of i feel i believe that you attract that kind of energy to you if you put whatever you put out into the universe comes back to you it's okay to feel that way and feel angry and feel upset when something happens but then also it's you should apply the learning to it you know sit back go okay where did i contribute to this situation and be very honest with yourself and then apply learning let's talk about the human resource function most people seem to forget that at its core the human resources function is still part of a it's a business department it wasn't set up originally to be a department for people right even though the name human and i hate the term human resources so i don't like that term i did not make it up and nobody seems to listen to me when i when i suggest we should change the name so some companies actually do call it other things which i i can appreciate but i don't like the term human resources at the very core level at the very top level human resources is a very strategic business partner to the most senior levels of leadership so it's kind of like the right hand man or woman i guess you could say for the very top leadership and usually at the very highest levels the hr department or the hr function is very closely aligned to the business strategy and so there's usually a chro or somebody that is sits directly on the executive council that is very closely aligned it doesn't matter the size of a company every company that i've ever worked at the human resources person has a lot of closed doors meetings with the presidents with the ceos with the executive team and is really kind of behind the scenes getting into a lot of that strategy hr's primary purpose though is is not people and i and some hr people will probably say no that you you don't know what you're talking about but but if you hear me out hr's primary purpose is to mitigate risk to implement risk avoidance and then compliance that's the primary directive so it's the mitigate risk to um to ensure risk avoidance and then to make sure that you comply when that's with legalese like the legal so you keep the company out of hot water legally and that's the ultimate driving mission of all hr departments the next tier down i would say that's the first guiding light the next tier down would then be strategic alignment to business decisions so if the business wants to go in a certain direction the hr department then is its purpose is to align the talent and with the overall business strategy so they're looking at their organizations and then making sure they've got the right people in place to get to where the executive team wants to go and that's in a lot of cases where people experience layoffs they experience adverse employment decisions if you are not part of the strategic direction of where the company is going you're going to get that letter that pink slip that's going to say thanks for your time but we've reorganized and you're no longer of good fit for this organization so it doesn't mean that you're a bad employee doesn't mean that you are not capable it just means that your particular position or what you contributed in that position was not a good strategic alignment for where they wanted to go and that's where the coldness and the calculatedness comes in because it is truly at that level it is a business decision and the business decisions can seem very calculated and very cutthroat and that's where hr gets a really bad rap is because they're they're the deliverers of bad news it's not like hr well in some cases they do they sit down very closely with the um the executive committee and they kind of create they look at workforce they lay out all the people on the spreadsheets for all the different organizations and they look at all the different core competencies that they have and then they make their decisions and it's literally you're a number and you're a name and your data and you basically and it's it sucks to think of it that way but that's the truth of it you know it's that's kind of the blunt truth in a lot of cases if you're just data on a chart you know the the metrics supporting where they want to go or the the skill sets that they that they need are going to be made at that level through talent planning and and all that kind of stuff now on this channel i do talk a lot about that concept about getting caught off guard not being in charge of your career letting organizations steer you and then you're completely at the mercy of an organization to keep you gainfully employed and that's what gets people into a lot of trouble so if this type of content is interesting to you make sure you hit the subscribe button and check out some of my older videos because i do really talk a lot about this concept of getting yourself into an independence thinking of yourself as a free agent and becoming more in control of where your career is heading then i would say the final purpose of hr is then what you kind of think of in terms of typical hr departments is to attract develop and retain talent and they do that through a variety of functions through recruitment through establishing business practices and policies actually kind of falls under the compliance and uh risk risk avoidance but the um developing uh hiring people developing them and then kind of the benefits administration and kind of that service oriented hr function which most of us are familiar with you know you go to your hr department if you have an issue with your paycheck or benefits or you know some other issue with time off or something like that or you want to complain about somebody who's harassing you or something like that so that's where you go to hr and that's kind of typically that's actually in my opinion now this is again this is this is all my opinion but this is my 20 years of experience of observing is these are the three hierarchies and the the lower levels is where you typically find the compassionate um the compassionate people because the hr is full of compassionate people that that are in like especially at the at the employee level i'll call it maybe it's at a plant or at a location where you're working where you go into somebody's office and you talk to that that local hr rep who is genuinely interested in helping you and trying to make your employment situation the best but those are kind of at the lower levels as you get higher in the organizations it becomes much more strategic and much more calculated and that's where the coldness kind of comes in and it's and usually it's not a personal thing it's a very business disoriented decision it's very calculated and that's where the it's hard to separate your emotion because again we're emotional people and emotional creatures and that's just the nature of us and when you have this very calculated coldness to business decisions you know that's where people have a hard time it's almost like a betrayal in a way you know like how could you do this to me i've been working here for all these years and dedicated my life to the mission and how could you do that and because it comes down to a business decision if you are on the wrong side of that business decision and if you become um if you become complacent in your career and you've allowed a company to you've never really take you've trusted the company to do the right thing for you you've placed your trust into an organization that ultimately the end of the day is going to make the best business decision and so it doesn't always mean that it's going to be you that's going to have the best that have the best outcome in it so we have to take back our careers we have to be free agents we have to prepare ourselves to survive the there's no i shouldn't even survive to to thrive in these situations because if you truly own your career and you truly have direction and you know exactly where you're going then these types of situations become less important or less impactful to you because you're you're your own independent person you're not somebody that has been at a company for 20 years and now that's how you identify yourself as you become an independent a free agent who maybe the free agent three signs with the company over and over and over again you know it's just like a free agent on a sports team you have some people spend their entire career on a certain team and then you've got other ones that kind of journey them in them them their way around and go get that's how they get the highest comp ranges or the paychecks and they get the best their fastest career path but there's also a valid path to stay in the same company and just keep on resigning but you still have to treat yourself as a free agent you still have to go hit the weight room and prepare and practice and make sure that you're at the top of your game because you own your own career so i want to make sure that people understand that hr at its highest level is aligned to to business senior leaders if you go into it thinking that the hr function is designed to be your friend it's a cold hard reality that unfortunately people learn about kind of too late you're in a situation where you feel like you need to engage the human resource department above kind of the surface level hr stuff i would suggest before you do that like if you're dealing with some significant friction in your organization with maybe your boss maybe with other co-workers that are influential you know be really careful to try to try to resolve any issues that you can without getting human resources involved i would that's what i would suggest now again you want to make sure that you cover your own self and especially when it gets into illegal legality issues and stuff that could come back to bite you if you don't say something about it so i want you to be very careful there but if it's something that you know you have a personality conflict or you're just uh you want to complain or something like that i would be very careful to try to address the situation if you can and it makes sense at your level first before you go in now if you've got benefits issues you've got paycheck issues you've got policy interpretation problems and stuff like that then fine i mean by all means please go see your hr department they're there to help um but if you're looking at kind of a bigger thing if you start to develop reputations you know they because when a human resource department hears something if you if you say something in a meeting with them and they hear it and it you even if it's kind of innocent on your part they are required to push it up the telephone pole so to speak the flagpole so we can't not do something about it because again it's that going back to that first one it's the risk avoidance if you say something that now i hear and i say okay that's risk and i have to we have to minimize that and i'm aware of it now i'm held viable so that's why you have to be really careful when you go in and you you decide you want to complain about something i probably wouldn't recommend venting to your human resources department because the whole time that they're listening to you they're listening for is there a legal risk in what you're telling me and is there something that i need to get in front of from a corporate perspective because ultimately the human resource department is a corporate function it's it was built and implemented by the highest levels of the corporation it was not built by the employees so that's does that make sense and i know that that sounds kind of cold hard ugly reality of it but the reality of it is human resources departments formed you know 80 to 100 years ago as personnel departments to staff for these big huge mega corporations like the steel manufacturers back at the in the kind of the industrial revolution that's where they that's where these personnel the personnel department came out and it was not to be uh advocate for the employee it was to be an advocate for the business to make sure the business had the resources that they needed to produce the products that they needed you know you got to keep that in mind when you decide to go in and walk across you know walk over to your human resources person that they are lit they are really listening at least the most human resource are going to be listening for risk it's a risk avoidance that's kind of the situation with human resources i hope that this kind of clarifies the situation for you know if you are feeling angry upset mad bitter uh just know that that's that's the situation there's just know that there is people inside of hr that don't like it either but that's just how it is and you know just try to be strategic and forward thinking with your career so if you found value in this video would really appreciate a thumbs up if you haven't hit the subscribe button already would love to have a subscribe button from you as well and hit that notification bell because i've got a lot of great content planned it keeps on i've got a whole laundry list of things that i'm that i'm planning on covering on the channel so i'd love to have you along as a as a subscriber if you are in a situation where you dealt with an adverse employment decision and you are looking for more help that's actually what i specialize in so i've actually got a website called life after layoff dot com it is a loaded with tips and tricks all from a recruiter and hr professional insider perspective and there's a bunch of free resources on there so go and check that out i also have a couple of training courses that will help you get back on your feet if you are somebody that is looking for a job or had gotten laid off and was really trying to get back on your feet the first one is called resume rock and fuel resume rocket fuel is really designed to get you that first interview so if you're not getting interviews and you're not getting a lot of activity on your profile chances are it's your resume that is the issue and we need to correct that and so i actually took all of my knowledge as a corporate recruiter over 20 years and my experience as a professional resume writer and i basically transferred all that to a course so you should check that out and then that's designed to get you the first interview once you get the first interview the next step in the process would be how do you get from the first interview all the way to the offer and i have another course that for that that's called the ultimate job seeker boot camp and it's it's my most deep and intimate knowledge so i share a lot of stuff here i share a lot of value i give you the most deep and intimate knowledge step by step each part of the hiring process what hiring managers are looking for we actually review hiring manager feedback and what i hear most commonly from hiring managers so that you can position yourself as strategically as possible to get through all those different steps so if you are struggling with your job search i would encourage you to check that out there's also a free five-day job seeker boot camp that you might want to check out as well so lots of stuff over on on a life after layoff so head over there and check it out and i appreciate you watching this long kind of un long video that kind of goes off in some different little mini tangents but appreciate you watching and we will see you on the next one

Channel: A Life After Layoff

Views: 153,765

Keywords: the ugly truth about HR, human resources is not your friend, human resources day in the life, issues at work, got laid off, fired from job, got fired from my job, toxic workplace, signs of a toxic workplace, complaining at work, hr isn't your friend, will hr help me, should i go to hr about my boss, should i go to hr about bullying, should i go to hr about my coworker, hr investigation, human resources career, hr doesnt care, hr doesnt help, hr doesnt do anything

Id: B3Kwo4HdFqU

Length: 21min 9sec (1269 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021