I think that's true. How many businesses of a certain size do NOT have an HR Dept? Any?
Why?
I think it's partly the mindset of many businesses that "expertise," however defined, is valued. The thought is that hiring and managing people is such an important function that we need "experts" which is in this case HR professionals. The results speak for themselves.
However, HR depts. serve a much more important function for a company...they PROTECT THE COMPANY FROM ITS EMPLOYEES.
I believe the #1 priority of any HR Dept is...don't let us get sued. So there are all kinds of methods and processes for hiring and firing that are legally sound but functionally null (at best).
I think that's true. How many businesses of a certain size do NOT have an HR Dept? Any? Why?
I think it's partly the mindset of many businesses that "expertise," however defined, is valued. The thought is that hiring and managing people is such an important function that we need "experts" which is in this case HR professionals. The results speak for themselves.
However, HR depts. serve a much more important function for a company...they PROTECT THE COMPANY FROM ITS EMPLOYEES.
I believe the #1 priority of any HR Dept is...don't let us get sued. So there are all kinds of methods and processes for hiring and firing that are legally sound but functionally null (at best).
While true for some companies, I think that really depends on the company and the HR department.
Compliance is a huge issue for companies now days; federal and state DOL regulations, EEOC, FMLA, unemployment claims, workers compensation, disability claims, health and welfare benefits, wrongful terminations, fair hiring practices, background checks and drug screenings, what you can and can’t ask in an interview, policies that you can and can’t include in the employee handbook and in the case of the company I work for – payroll with all the tax and other regulations that fall on my dept which is under HR - it’s a mine field out there and having a competent HR department does help keep the company out of court and prevent them from being fined big bucks.
I’ve also seen our HR manager go to bat for our employees and she really does listen to their concerns and complaints and when valid, she tries to resolve their issues and acts as their advocate. She advises/mentors employees who want to move up, or transfer to other positions within the company, telling them if they are not qualified but also tells them why and with suggestions for further training or areas where they need improvement or if they are qualified, makes sure they have a fair shot at the promotion or transfer. She’s been with this company for over 24 years and knows our business, the area and the “culture” and really has her finger on the pulse of all our workers and is highly respected by all for her honesty and fairness.
I’ve also seen her question performance reviews conducted by a manager where that manager gives one employee a higher review score than another but the comments on the review are either exactly identical or the employee with the higher score has been recently reprimanded, has a poor attendance record or has been put on an improvement plan – yes, there is potential legal exposure for the company that she is concerned about, but she also wants to ensure that an employee is truly not being treated unfairly by a manager with a grudge or personal issue not related to their employee’s performance. She will also look at outstanding performance reviews and talk to their manager about the employee’s potential for promotion and then the employee to ascertain if that is something that they are interested in pursuing. She also makes sure that our performance reviews are written in such a way as to be both meaningful and fair to the employees and management and not onerous or overly time consuming for supervisors to complete.
And I’ve seen managers write job descriptions for new positions but when it comes to writing the job listing, they ask for things like degrees or certifications that are not at all supported by the actual job description or they have unrealistic expectations of what that position should pay, either way too low or way too high. A good HR manager can bring both the manager’s expectations of what is needed vs. what is “wanted” and what the job market is paying for those positions and for our region and our industry, what a qualified applicants expect in an offer and brings theses all in line to get the best candidate for the job. One recent example was when we had an opening for a pricing analyst. The hiring manager wanted 10+ years of experience in pricing and both a BA and an MBA in but only wanted to pay something like $15 per hour as a non-exempt (hourly) employee but the actual job description as written did not support this. She told the hiring manager it was a waste of both her and his and any applicant’s time to advertize the position that way and bring in qualified candidates and then only offer them $15 per hour and for a non-exempt position when the job description alone would make it salaried position and that the job advert as proposed would bring in only people looking for a lot more than $15 per hour. As a result, with her help, the manager re-wrote both the job description and the job advert (upgraded the job description a bit and lowered the job advert to match and more in line with what was really needed) and we hired someone who so far is working out very well and within the new job description, a job and person who filled it that are serving the business needs and well within budget and a new hire who is not likely to quit in a few weeks or months because the job and pay wasn’t what they wanted or within the market price for their skills set.
Last year we got a new president and he has tried to make a lot of changes in a very short time – some are good and make sense and some are just because that was what he was used to at his last company and or, and in my opinion, he just wants to flex his muscle and authority and make changes for the sake of making changes.
Effective January 1, we are becoming a 100% smoke free campus and while my HR manager is a smoker herself, she was more concerned and stood up for our other and especially our hourly employees when it was proposed by upper management that: we should drug test for nicotine as we would for illegal narcotics and telling hourly workers that they were not allowed to leave the building during their unpaid lunch break or if they were allowed to leave the building, that they couldn’t smoke in their own vehicle even while off company property or parked on the public street across from our facility or in not hiring new employees who were smokers (which is illegal in NC where one of our plants is located). She made it very clear that while such a policy is supposed to be an incentive to quit smoking and in theory to reduce our healthcare costs and she supports the smoke free campus idea and this policy would be “legal” except for our NC plant. She also pointed out that smoking is still legal and that by treating workers who smoke and only the hourly employees with unpaid meal breaks (as opposed to salaried or some hourly workers on 2nd, 3rd and weekend shift workers who get a paid meal break), many of them long time and productive workers, like criminals or children, that this would have a real negative effect on moral. She also pointed out that workers who are not smokers could be engaging in activities or life style choices on their free time that could also impact their health and her push back resulted in a more reasonable and fair policy.
The new president also recently wanted us to change our Paid Time Off (PTO) policy, originally wanting to institute effective January 1, an annual “use it or lose it” policy and then when that was struck down, a reduced number of hours one could carry over from year to year (to only 40 hours), and reducing the maximum caps on accrued PTO hours to 120 hours across the board, regardless of how long they’ve worked for the company and totally eliminating the ability to cash out unused PTO. While again, she understood the economic reasons for the proposed changes and supported it, she also brought to the president and the compensation committee’s attention the fact that some employees with more than 20 years with the company have banked up to their max, in some cases up to 300 hours of PTO and that there was no way they could use all that time between now and the end of the year without impacting production and that it was unfair for them to lose this time especially if they were not able to cash it out or use that time due to business needs. She also advocated for a cap and carry over limit higher than 40 hours as because if an hourly employee goes out on short term disability, they have a four week wait period and can use their banked PTO as a float until their STD kicks in. In this case she looked at what was good for the company but also what was fair to the employees.
While I’ve worked for some companies where HR was only looking out only for the company, even ignoring or supporting illegal or unethical employment policies, that’s not how it works at the company I work for presently - and thank goodness.