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In any remotely sane company, HR does what management says. The manager may well be replaced, but it's the manager's manager or someone even higher in the food

In any remotely sane company, HR does what management says. The manager may well be replaced, but it's the manager's manager or someone even higher in the food chain who makes that call, not HR on their own.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
HR has their own obligations to the people they report to. If they can't justify the manager's suggestion without sticking their necks out to a degree they're comfortable with they probably won't. They'll mostly side with the manager (because selection bias, not a lot of managers are bringing them cases of people they want fired where that outcome is not compatible with the processes) but may very well tell a manager to just deal with it if that's what's "doing their jobs" looks like. Things like this are never as black and white as people looking for cheap upvotes make them out to be.
- dustintrex 5y ago
  I don't think we're disagreeing here? Of course HR can and will push back if (say) firing somebody without proper CYA could result in a lawsuit, but the point is that HR is not the one initiating any firing -- that has to come from management.
PeterisP 5y ago
They way I've seen it, the manager's manager formally makes the call, but they wouldn't really know the other person involved (they would just work with their subordinate managers) nor the details of the particular problem. If they care, then they would get into the details and perhaps fire whichever of the two is actually at fault; but if they don't care much (which I've seen happen, especially in more lower paid/mass market positions), they would rubberstamp whatever HR says - especially since it's not that unlikely that the conflict will escalate into a complaint (no matter if real or not) about discrimination or workplace abuse, and so from the perspective of that manager's manager it's very important that a Proper Process gets followed and (for many jobs, though usually not for IT jobs) not that important to them about who stays and who leaves afterwards, as HR will just get an equivalent replacement.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

HR has their own obligations to the people they report to. If they can't justify the manager's suggestion without sticking their necks out to a degree they're comfortable with they probably won't. They'll mostly side with the manager (because selection bias, not a lot of managers are bringing them cases of people they want fired where that outcome is not compatible with the processes) but may very well tell a manager to just deal with it if that's what's "doing their jobs" looks like. Things like this are never as black and white as people looking for cheap upvotes make them out to be.

dustintrex 5y ago
I don't think we're disagreeing here? Of course HR can and will push back if (say) firing somebody without proper CYA could result in a lawsuit, but the point is that HR is not the one initiating any firing -- that has to come from management.

PeterisP 5y ago

They way I've seen it, the manager's manager formally makes the call, but they wouldn't really know the other person involved (they would just work with their subordinate managers) nor the details of the particular problem. If they care, then they would get into the details and perhaps fire whichever of the two is actually at fault; but if they don't care much (which I've seen happen, especially in more lower paid/mass market positions), they would rubberstamp whatever HR says - especially since it's not that unlikely that the conflict will escalate into a complaint (no matter if real or not) about discrimination or workplace abuse, and so from the perspective of that manager's manager it's very important that a Proper Process gets followed and (for many jobs, though usually not for IT jobs) not that important to them about who stays and who leaves afterwards, as HR will just get an equivalent replacement.