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Having worked in Tech for many years at corporations large and small, I have seen companies run by Founders, by Sales, by Marketing, by Finance, by Engineering,

by kurthr 5y ago

Having worked in Tech for many years at corporations large and small, I have seen companies run by Founders, by Sales, by Marketing, by Finance, by Engineering, and by Legal. Each had their plusses an minuses. Until I saw hospital nursing, I had never seen a company run by HR. Every decision starts and ends with HR. From hiring, to wages, to discipline and promotion, to IT and pay-roll, to reorganization and spending priorities, there is a rule for that. Maybe that rule originally came from the CEO or the CNO, but they say things like "may" and get interpreted as "shall" (or the manager faces a bad review and/or termination) or they are interpreted beyond any rational meaning. My best explanation is that it comes from a fear of litigation and a lack of leadership at the top. The final hilarious story is the CEO negotiating a big deal with lawyers and VPs shaking hands... and then saying without joking, "but I'll have to get HR's approval". The meeting wasn't important enough for HR to show up, but they had the last say.

beezlebroxxxxxx 5y ago
If you follow the history of HR departments in a lot of modern corporations you often see them operating as private in-house legal firms, and aggressively expanding their purview to include even actions at the executive level. The only thing most HR departments look out for is HR. Everything they do resolves around continuing or expanding the power of the HR department. Your comment on lack of leadership is spot on. No one wants to be accountable. Instead HR departments put in place bureaucracy that works to deny individual fallibility in the name of a "system of human resource management". They want to treat people like a cog in a machine instead of as people.
- inetknght 5y ago
  > No one wants to be accountable. That is American corporations in a nutshell. Outsource everything, put layers upon layers, and insulate yourself. Then when fecal matter hits the rotary you can put the blame on others and, at worst, you get fired and there's little to no worry about any sort of legal reprecussion because... well you weren't accountable for the problems in the first place! It's a massive problem created from little cuts here and there with a few big lawsuits mixed in.
  - kickout 5y ago
    Agree with you, but people on HN and other places tend to flame/heckle companies that don't do this too, aka Elon Musk. Love him or hate him he does things 'his' way without all the seemingly built-in middle layers. I like it as opposed to the HR led office space cosplay, but people seem to want their cake and eat it too.

by kurthr 5y ago

beezlebroxxxxxx 5y ago

If you follow the history of HR departments in a lot of modern corporations you often see them operating as private in-house legal firms, and aggressively expanding their purview to include even actions at the executive level. The only thing most HR departments look out for is HR. Everything they do resolves around continuing or expanding the power of the HR department. Your comment on lack of leadership is spot on. No one wants to be accountable. Instead HR departments put in place bureaucracy that works to deny individual fallibility in the name of a "system of human resource management". They want to treat people like a cog in a machine instead of as people.

inetknght 5y ago
> No one wants to be accountable. That is American corporations in a nutshell. Outsource everything, put layers upon layers, and insulate yourself. Then when fecal matter hits the rotary you can put the blame on others and, at worst, you get fired and there's little to no worry about any sort of legal reprecussion because... well you weren't accountable for the problems in the first place! It's a massive problem created from little cuts here and there with a few big lawsuits mixed in.
- kickout 5y ago
  Agree with you, but people on HN and other places tend to flame/heckle companies that don't do this too, aka Elon Musk. Love him or hate him he does things 'his' way without all the seemingly built-in middle layers. I like it as opposed to the HR led office space cosplay, but people seem to want their cake and eat it too.