Okay, I will admit it. I hate human resources. I really do. And I want to tell you my experience with HR and why you should hate HR, too. Okay, hate is too strong of a word on Ash Wednesday. That's why you should be miffed with HR too.
Every once in a while, I need to interact with HR. Re-sign up for health insurance (yes, I suspect they really want to drop people, and that's why one has to re-sign up every year), change W-4 dependents, whatever.
First, if you have a question – who do you call? Well, we have a fairly extensive intranet, and so you can hop on it, and look for anyone by name. I know my HR person's name, and so I type it in and, I don't get any name or number. When you query me, "Leesa Lovelace" (not my real name, my porn name), you get my phone number. When you call our operator, you get my number but not my HR person's number. Nice.
So then I query the department. So I type in Human Resources, and I get this reply:
Benefits COBRA/Audit/Billing Chief Human Resource Officer Compensation Employee Assistance Program Employee Relations HR Management Systems HR Records Management International Services: Immigration & Visa International Services: Non-Resident Alien Occupational Health Services Organizational Effectiveness Payroll Records Management Recruitment Services | 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 |
All departments have the same number. Nice. Not a phone tree either. A real person answers every phone call, and then connects you to someone else.
Here is my experience thus far with calling HR. Remember, I know the name my HR person (some people don't) – and so when I call 555-1000, I ask for the person by name. And then I get disconnected. I call again. Busy. Call again several times, and finally get the HR main number to ring. And ring and ring and ring. No answer.
I call an hour later, and get the main number to answer. Nameless, faceless person – who never identifies herself. She transfers me again, and I get someone else. They tell me to call back to 555-1000.
And when I eventually get through, the person on the other end always has to look something up and call me back. And they never do.
Actually, there is someone from HR in our building, but since they are "Recruitment Services", they cannot help me. Ever. HR people where I work are very nice but not helpful. Which is probably predictable, because their workloads are light. Barriers that they put up make sure that very few requests for information, action, whatever ever get through.
Occasionally I have to complete paperwork, and I have learned that anything that goes through inter-office mail to HR is lost. Everything. The HR person in my office will not take anything from us that are not "Recruitment Services"-related. So I hand carry things to HR. Thanks, Human Resources.
Oh, well, I better get back to work. You see, I don't work in HR.
3. My Stories. Yeah, I have a few erotic stories here. I know, they are not all that good, but they were fun to write. Don't read them if this offends you (and they represent less than 1% of the content here). These stories have elements of truth and fantasy, some more true than others. Complain about something that is a bit more substantive if you must complain. I have lots of faults.
8 comments:
Its like calling the Canadian government, they're all the same #, and automated answering machines...please give us your social insurance #....please give us your date of birth...you address....blah blah blah...then you finally get a person and they ask you the same shit, only to tell you oh...let me transfer you...to another person that asks yet again the same shit...its a viscious circle. Lol...ok Im glad I got that off my chest.
At my last job, HR, IT, and Accounting always hung together (the people with sensitive personal information, sensitive financial information, and sensitive tech information). The rules were a) they lived to inspire low-level fear in others, b) they loved sending out rules that didn't apply to them (like not using company property for personal use), and c) that their professional restrictions to not gossip about other's company secrets didn't apply at the lunch table.
Once the IT department created an automated report. Whenever you used the Internet (even if it was for business purposes - they forgot to filter that) it would generate a report that went to your supervisors and their superiors that said what sites you visited, how much time you spent there, and how much money was wasted based upon the company's (on paper) costs for accessing the Internet and the cost of the time spent multiplied by your salary. That made a lot of people mad, especially me when I was told to research something and then they presented me with this report saying I wasted an hour of the company's time, so the report was finally scrapped, but nobody got in trouble or lost their jobs because of rule d) IT, HR, and Accounting are above the law. Only the people that actually contribute to making the company's product are expendable.
So...uh...how does everyone feel about HR?
Sadly, I think that a lot of HR departments do, indeed, suck. I've always found that the more removed they are from the people they support they worse they are. The best HR departments are easily accessable by phone or in person and they make sure that they truly know the people they support.
My former boss conspired once with the HR dept at my last job to run me out of my job. I caught wind of it beforehand, though, and headed it off at the pass. For some reason, the woman that was the HR division head didn't like me(no idea why; I hardly knew her), and she was more than willing to go along with the plan. So yeah, I hate HR, too.
Once we as employees, sometimes part owners in our companies, probably consumers of the goods produced by these companies, and the best spokespeople the company can have became known as "Resources", we should have known we were in trouble. And why "Human" resources? Not Employee resources or Associate resources...but just merely human resources. That way, the assigning of a number and the treatment similar to cattle is acceptable.
How strange that all departments have one number. Maybe that is why HR dept are not helpful - too much coming in on one line.
Hard to tell sometimes... Or rather, never can tell.
www.bikedrool.blogspot.com
shannon: you change your pic more than I change my panties. Well, not quite that often. And Eliot does look like your brother!
miranda: I have not called the Canadian Gov't. I bet it's like calling the American Gov't.
grant: well said. I never thought about the three being so similar.
joe: sorry for the post. Today's is lighter. And better.
bruce: I forgot to mention the power HR holds.
david m: I think there is a book in your response. Really.
Dr. ~Deb: I think HR designed it that way.
daniel b: are you just shopping for traffic, sweetie? You could use that phrase for most posts.
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