Assholes in HR

I got an interesting note from "Suzie" about how the people in HR Departments. Here is an excerpt  from what she wrote me:

My company was moving our office to another city, and the head of HR sent out information about moving. He did not include the address or directions and also didn't include the email address of the person he told us to contact if we had questions. I replied to suggest it would help all the employees to provide this so  we wouldn't have to individually look up the information (wasting a lot of time). A few minutes later an HR manager who reports to him came to my cubicle to explain that I could look on Mapquest and how to use the company phone directory. Basically I felt like I was reported for  suggesting an efficiency. I've pretty much found many people in HR are assholes.

Suzie's conclusion that she was "reported for suggested an efficiency" is something that every person in every HR department should read and think about closely -- this is the kind of organization that quality guru W. Edwards Deming railed against and the kind that  Harvard Business School's Amy Edmondson has shown undermines psychological safety, which  drives out learning and error correction.

 I have a lot of respect and sympathy for people who work in Human Resources departments.  Unfortunately, however, this isn't the first time I've heard stories like this about people in HR.  I won't defend their behavior but it does seem to me that many organizations put HR staff members in positions where it is a lot easier -- and safer -- to act like rigid assholes instead of actually helping people to their job. HR people have tough jobs, as they deal with some of the contentious issues in organizations, hiring, performance evaluations, pay equity, benefits, and the messy problems of dealing with problem employees of all stripes. To make matter worse, in too many companies, no one notices them when they do their jobs well, but when things go wrong, they get in trouble. So, although companies talk about people being their most important asset, people in HR are often treated as the least powerful department, and ironically, treated by other senior executives as among the company's least important human assets.

This lack of power and constant fear of getting in trouble often leads HR executives and staff to become very bureaucratic and to say no to requests to take actions that will actually help employees do their jobs.  Charles O'Reilly's and Jeff Pfeffer's Hidden Value shows how this mentality even arose at Southwest Airlines in the 1980's, where the old HR Department was known as the "police department." Ann  Rhoades (who went on years later to be founding  head of HR at JetBlue) was brought in to  turn the department around  -- she threw away the 300 page book of rules, renamed it the "people department,"  and brought in people who had line experience. Ann especially brought in people from marketing because, to paraphrase Libby Sartain who followed Ann in the position (and is now EVP of HR at Yahoo!) , people in HR always say "no" because they are so afraid of getting trouble and getting fired, while people in marketing say "yes" because they want their clients to be happy.  The People Department's job at Southwest is to do whatever it takes to make their clients -- Southwest employees -- happy and more effective.

I suggest that other HR managers take a cue from Suzie and Southwest. If you are in HR, do people think you are assholes who will punish them for making suggestions?  If you are a senior executive, do you treat people HR so badly that it is safer for them to act like assholes rather than to actually help your people do their work?

Comments

[Chadwick W.]

The biggest assholes are railway HR. They are "jacks of all trades" and "masters of none". They know plenty of theory but nothing about practical. They never did the jobs, but feel they can judge who can. Their noses are so up in the air they would drown in the rain. If I had my way and was president of a railway, I would liquidate HOUR and let individual bosses of each department do the hiring. HOUR is a retro out of date "has been" department of little snot nosed "know it alls".

[hamburg]

nice read. i like your article so much. cheers.

[Bob Sutton]

Jason,

Thanks!

Bob

[Jason Yip]

"through away" should be "threw away"