4 ms·

Myth: HR is on your side. Reality: The Uber sexual harassment scandal

14 points by fooey 9y ago

tovacinni 9y ago
Does anyone actually think that HR is on their side? :p
- fred_is_fred 9y ago
  When I was just starting my career, I did. I think a lot of people assume that they are there to help and protect you.
  - beagle3 9y ago
    Just like the government...
    - SpikeDad 9y ago
      Frankly I'd trust the government more than I'd trust an HR rep. At least in the government you have people who believe they work for the citizens of the US. Well perhaps the previous administration anyways...
  - gozur88 9y ago
    Sniff. I remember when I was young and naive too. Actually, it may have been mostly true thirty years ago, before the workplace became a minefield.
    - fred_is_fred 9y ago
      There's nowhere that teaches you this lesson except hard experience. I found out when I was accused of theft by security at my office.
- meric 9y ago
  They are on your side if you are on the company's side. E.g. sorting out equipment issues, leave requests, forms, etc. If the on-boarding process is little to non-existent, the HR might be someone who takes care of you during the first couple of weeks until you get your wheels turning.
pmontra 9y ago
HR is always on the side of the company. Think Cattle Resources in a farm. I remember a post that compared it to secret police. First rule in any country with secret police: stay clear of secret police. I can't find it but there are plenty of them. Examples https://theartsmechanical.wordpress.com/2016/02/02/the-hr-secret-police/ https://theartsmechanical.wordpress.com/2016/02/02/the-hr-se... http://www.cmo.com/opinion/articles/2015/11/25/is-hr-the-new-corporate-.html http://www.cmo.com/opinion/articles/2015/11/25/is-hr-the-new...
beagle3 9y ago
One has to be incredibly naive to think HR is on the employee's side. Always follow the money: Who pay's HR? Company; ergo - if HR is against company, HR gets replaced. Same for binding arbitration: Who is the arbiter's repeat customer, company or client? company. ergo, if arbiter is not good for them, arbiter gets replaced. Also, when you buy real estate, some people believe that their agent is looking out for them. However, if you look at the money, one party (buyer) brings money to the table, and three parties (buyer agent, seller agent, seller) take money proportional to the deal amount; Therefore, everyone except buyer wants deal amount to be maximized.
- fred_is_fred 9y ago
  What's funny is that people and especially agents will say that they are ethically bound as your agent (the buyer) to help you. Money always trumps ethics unfortunately but I've found very few people who actually seem to understand this.
- pasbesoin 9y ago
  Given that a lot of HR is deliberately duplicitous about this, and that apparently -- still -- other "authority" figures in many young peoples' lives don't address this (every college "career counseling" center in the U.S.: I'm looking at you), I think one bout of naiveté can be excused -- although still preferably avoided. HR IS NOT YOUR FRIEND! Hell, HR often is not even the hiring manager's friend. "Best practices" are often a poor fit to the real world and individual circumstances. Hiring managers often have to jump through hoops to try to get HR to act on the candidates they actually want. The way to work HR, is to know that -- if they're competent -- they are all about risk management. So, make what you want also the way they minimize their risk, to the extent you can. When I left one of my jobs, some of my PTO time had lapsed per a newer "use it or lose it" policy -- this "loss" probably aided by another prior action, lumping "vacation" time and "sick" time into a single pool. But, I'd done well by my team. And HR didn't want any unnecessary waves. So, they paid it to me, regardless. It was also a time of enough organizational transition, that this individual action would most likely "get lost in the wash" and not become the basis for another employee claiming unequal treatment. THAT's how HR works. They help you, only when it helps them. The rest is all empty rhetoric. If you buy it, they just gained (gamed) some cheap compliance from you -- that's all. P.S. As always, individual circumstances may happen to vary. But regardless, go in with your eyes open and your guard up.
malandrew 9y ago
At least this article gets it right in identifying this as an industry-wide problem instead of narrowing responsibility to a single company. I can only attribute this to the fact that this article was written by an HR professional instead of a journalist, who often confuse cause and effect according to their own personal biases and agendas. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2011/08/the-murray-gell-mann-amnesia-effect/ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2011/08/the-murray-ge... Correctly identifying this as an industry-wide problem means that all HR departments get appropriate scrutiny instead of focusing scrutiny on one specific HR department, which has the unfortunate effect of causing society to ignore problems that exist in practically all HR departments.
SilasX 9y ago
Yes, yes, it's become a cliche to point this out. (See: every comment posted as of this moment.) But that's not the real lesson here -- we now see that this stonewalling/gaslighting didn't even help the company, since HR were so hardcore about being so kafkaesque that Uber got stuck with a major PR scandal that cost numerous managers they were ostensibly protecting! That's a particularly nasty kind of frustration -- not simply when someone opposes your goals, but does it so confusedly that they're hurting themselves in the process and yet you're still powerless to stop it! (Anyone can relate to Fowler's experience if they've had to deal with that kafkaesque, self-hurting bureaucracy "that will make you look bad if anyone actually takes an interest in the case".) So no, it's not enough to dismiss this case as "HR protects the company,"; that logic wouldn't explain why, in this case, they "protected" the company by doing extremely risky things that could blow up badly.

14 points by fooey 9y ago

tovacinni 9y ago

Does anyone actually think that HR is on their side? :p

fred_is_fred 9y ago
When I was just starting my career, I did. I think a lot of people assume that they are there to help and protect you.
- beagle3 9y ago
  Just like the government...
  - SpikeDad 9y ago
    Frankly I'd trust the government more than I'd trust an HR rep. At least in the government you have people who believe they work for the citizens of the US. Well perhaps the previous administration anyways...
- gozur88 9y ago
  Sniff. I remember when I was young and naive too. Actually, it may have been mostly true thirty years ago, before the workplace became a minefield.
  - fred_is_fred 9y ago
    There's nowhere that teaches you this lesson except hard experience. I found out when I was accused of theft by security at my office.
meric 9y ago
They are on your side if you are on the company's side. E.g. sorting out equipment issues, leave requests, forms, etc. If the on-boarding process is little to non-existent, the HR might be someone who takes care of you during the first couple of weeks until you get your wheels turning.

pmontra 9y ago

HR is always on the side of the company. Think Cattle Resources in a farm. I remember a post that compared it to secret police. First rule in any country with secret police: stay clear of secret police. I can't find it but there are plenty of them. Examples https://theartsmechanical.wordpress.com/2016/02/02/the-hr-secret-police/ https://theartsmechanical.wordpress.com/2016/02/02/the-hr-se... http://www.cmo.com/opinion/articles/2015/11/25/is-hr-the-new-corporate-.html http://www.cmo.com/opinion/articles/2015/11/25/is-hr-the-new...

beagle3 9y ago

One has to be incredibly naive to think HR is on the employee's side. Always follow the money: Who pay's HR? Company; ergo - if HR is against company, HR gets replaced. Same for binding arbitration: Who is the arbiter's repeat customer, company or client? company. ergo, if arbiter is not good for them, arbiter gets replaced. Also, when you buy real estate, some people believe that their agent is looking out for them. However, if you look at the money, one party (buyer) brings money to the table, and three parties (buyer agent, seller agent, seller) take money proportional to the deal amount; Therefore, everyone except buyer wants deal amount to be maximized.

fred_is_fred 9y ago
What's funny is that people and especially agents will say that they are ethically bound as your agent (the buyer) to help you. Money always trumps ethics unfortunately but I've found very few people who actually seem to understand this.
pasbesoin 9y ago
Given that a lot of HR is deliberately duplicitous about this, and that apparently -- still -- other "authority" figures in many young peoples' lives don't address this (every college "career counseling" center in the U.S.: I'm looking at you), I think one bout of naiveté can be excused -- although still preferably avoided. HR IS NOT YOUR FRIEND! Hell, HR often is not even the hiring manager's friend. "Best practices" are often a poor fit to the real world and individual circumstances. Hiring managers often have to jump through hoops to try to get HR to act on the candidates they actually want. The way to work HR, is to know that -- if they're competent -- they are all about risk management. So, make what you want also the way they minimize their risk, to the extent you can. When I left one of my jobs, some of my PTO time had lapsed per a newer "use it or lose it" policy -- this "loss" probably aided by another prior action, lumping "vacation" time and "sick" time into a single pool. But, I'd done well by my team. And HR didn't want any unnecessary waves. So, they paid it to me, regardless. It was also a time of enough organizational transition, that this individual action would most likely "get lost in the wash" and not become the basis for another employee claiming unequal treatment. THAT's how HR works. They help you, only when it helps them. The rest is all empty rhetoric. If you buy it, they just gained (gamed) some cheap compliance from you -- that's all. P.S. As always, individual circumstances may happen to vary. But regardless, go in with your eyes open and your guard up.

malandrew 9y ago

At least this article gets it right in identifying this as an industry-wide problem instead of narrowing responsibility to a single company. I can only attribute this to the fact that this article was written by an HR professional instead of a journalist, who often confuse cause and effect according to their own personal biases and agendas. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2011/08/the-murray-gell-mann-amnesia-effect/ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2011/08/the-murray-ge... Correctly identifying this as an industry-wide problem means that all HR departments get appropriate scrutiny instead of focusing scrutiny on one specific HR department, which has the unfortunate effect of causing society to ignore problems that exist in practically all HR departments.

SilasX 9y ago

Yes, yes, it's become a cliche to point this out. (See: every comment posted as of this moment.) But that's not the real lesson here -- we now see that this stonewalling/gaslighting didn't even help the company, since HR were so hardcore about being so kafkaesque that Uber got stuck with a major PR scandal that cost numerous managers they were ostensibly protecting! That's a particularly nasty kind of frustration -- not simply when someone opposes your goals, but does it so confusedly that they're hurting themselves in the process and yet you're still powerless to stop it! (Anyone can relate to Fowler's experience if they've had to deal with that kafkaesque, self-hurting bureaucracy "that will make you look bad if anyone actually takes an interest in the case".) So no, it's not enough to dismiss this case as "HR protects the company,"; that logic wouldn't explain why, in this case, they "protected" the company by doing extremely risky things that could blow up badly.