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I can't help but wonder why just about every company has terrible hiring/HR/management practices. You would think that someone out there would fix those proble
by ahmedalsudani 8y ago
I can't help but wonder why just about every company has terrible hiring/HR/management practices.
You would think that someone out there would fix those problems at their companies and reap the rewards: an effective, highly motivated workforce.
The fact that we haven't seen that means either that it's a hard problem to solve, that nobody pays attention to it, or that there is no economic value in working to have "good" practices when it comes to workforce management.
... Or maybe it's good to have your workers living in fear, worrying if they'll be next at the end of your Kafkaesque processes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oh, one last thing I remembered: a previous coworker of mine raved about how his company treated workers, but the company was later acquired by a bigger player, and the situation changed. Perhaps companies with good practices get absorbed by the "big bad wolves" that have established themselves in the market.
- omegaham 8y agoI think the reason is that HR is similar to IT and QA - if they do their job right, it's like they're doing nothing at all. My guess is that "Thank God HR was on top of that problem" is not a common phrase in meetings. Neither is "Wow, HR did a fantastic job creating that job posting, and every single candidate that they've brought in has been at least plausible." If they aren't braindead, you just take them for granted. Systems like that tend to get neglected.
- halbritt 8y agoThe role of HR is to shield the company from liability.
- thwarted 8y agoThe role of IT and QA is also to shield the company from all kinds of liability: legal, process, financial, failures, continuity, etc.
- jiveturkey 8y agoonly incidentally. whereas it is literally HR’s job.
- jlawson 8y agoCome on, be fair. There are tons of administrative tasks that HR takes care of that have nothing to do with liability.
- jiveturkey 8y agosure. those are the incidental parts of their job.
- joshuamorton 8y agoDeciding on compensation structure, recruiting/hiring, and handling things like leave, benefits etc. Can all, depending on the company, fall under the purview of HR. None are primarily to protect the company from liability. There are certainly some parts of the job primarily about avoiding liability but, as go said, that's true for many swes too.
- jiveturkey 8y agocompensation structure is decided by the c suite, or can be. if decided by HR it’s just a convenient delegation of research work. recruiting is a separate function from HR. even in medium sized companies this is is visible in the reporting chain. the other things are all outsourceable and these days they are except for large companies and older companies with inertia. the one thing that isn’t outsourceable or trivially reassigned is liability. That is HR’s core competency, if you will.
- rhizome 8y agoI can't help but wonder why just about every company has terrible hiring/HR/management practices. At least with startups, I think money is too cheap and is flowing to underqualified people, managementwise. The VCs see a business person and a tech person, call it a startup and try to eke out a real company. Meanwhile, employees learn the meaning of shit flowing downhill and how culture comes from the top. Anyway, these cheap-money bosses are more often than not predictably bad at org-charting. Just add "flat hierarchy" and 3rd party HR, and 90% of the time it'll be a shitshow that at best elicits a chuckle when you mention how you work. [exaggerated for effect] Obligatory "sick systems" reference: https://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html https://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html
- i_made_a_booboo 8y agoSoftware is art, fashion and politics.
- eutropia 8y agoThere are companies out there quietly doing a great job see this and making money, but not the news. ;)
- golergka 8y ago> just about every company has terrible hiring/HR/management practices There are certainly companies out there with a lot of problems, and there are a lot of toxic people. But if it seems that every single manager and hiring person that you encounter is an asshole and a jerk, there is an alternative explanation. Just saying.
- gaius 8y agoYou would think that someone out there would fix those problems at their companies and reap the rewards: an effective, highly motivated workforce. The fundamental problem is a misalignment of incentives: what is good for any individual manager - getting a bigger budget and more staff reporting to them - it not necessarily what is good for the organisation as a whole, nor for any other individual within it, or even the shareholders or customers.