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HR needs to adopt a mantra similar to medicine’s “First, do no harm”. If there was any question over whether doctors would ever knowingly hurt patients, the ent

HR needs to adopt a mantra similar to medicine’s “First, do no harm”. If there was any question over whether doctors would ever knowingly hurt patients, the entire profession would halve its patientload over night. Likewise, HR departments are by-and-large good places with helpful and supportive people. However, the fact that they have the ability at all to report your conversations to management means no one trusts them and they become ineffective as a result.

refulgentis 2y ago
I get what you're saying, but it's a dizzying problem - the proximate problem to HR in these scenarios isn't that people think HR is bad or worry they'll relay the complaint, it's that HR has no teeth. At Google, I had an...unusual...de-facto manager for 2 years. After declining their offer to join their team, they spent six months engaging in behavior that violated company policies - though not in obvious ways like sexual harassment or violence. Going to HR seemed futile. Even assuming they could keep anonymity, their role is simply to investigate and report to management three levels up. Without clear-cut violations, it becomes a credibility contest. Since upper management selected the middle managers, they're inherently biased toward defending their choices. The situation came to a head between December 1st and January 1st. My performance rating plummeted from "O" (top 10%) to "MI" (bottom 10%) and a technically separate formal warning. Things came to a head because they were nominally leading work that was a huge political warzone between organizations, and they didn't really want to do anything. After I politely demurred their invitation to transfer, they hired a childhood friend as my replacement - they're still launching "new" features with the code I wrote two years ago. I documented various incidents over those six months that violated Google's code of conduct. But even in the best-case scenario: - HR confirms the violations. - They report findings to my third-level manager. - My second-level manager (who chose my de-facto manager) blames me. - The third-level manager (who chose the second-level manager) defers to their choice. I entered Google wondering how they handled professional disagreements. (I was a young CEO for the 5 years prior) Seven years later, I realized they don't - disagreement itself is seen as inappropriate. This dynamic inevitably hurts those lowest in the hierarchy. It's not malicious; everyone believes they're acting appropriately. But once anyone decides to prioritize comfort over strict policy enforcement (a natural human tendency), standard human politics take over. I honestly, swear to god, saw this in abundance at Google in ways I never saw at a fast food job. What I once dismissed as complaints from underperformers now seems depressingly accurate.
SOLAR_FIELDS 2y ago
As long as this is an arm of the company and there is no disinterested third party the incentive will always dictate that HR will place the interest of the company over the employee. As the old adage goes (paraphrased): “It’s difficult to make someone believe something when their salary depends on them not believing it”.
atmavatar 2y ago
The misunderstanding causing confusion here is that for HR, the business is the patient - not the employee. From HR's perspective, an employee is a body part of the business. If helping the employee (i.e., healing the body part) is best for the business, that's what HR does. If terminating the employee (i.e., amputating the body part) is best for the business, that's what HR does.
- disqard 2y ago
  I liked your analogy, and it sparked a thought -- employees are like fingernails: tools to be used, and trimmed/filed down when not needed. Of course, your analogy is better, because when corporations conduct layoffs to save money to do stock buybacks, that is really much closer to amputating body parts for the sake of a "weight loss" metric.
thatcat 2y ago
I'm not sure the mantra is effective. The 3rd leading cause of death is medical malpractice and yet people are still sick and still go to the doctor.
- defrost 2y ago
  That quip is less deep and more complex than you think. Look back to when the leading cause of death was "any slight infection" closely followed by any number of other accidents and diseases. Health, saftey, and treatment have now become so effective that death is relatively a great deal rarer in developed countries not at war to the point where people have an expectation of friends and relatives being kept alive and strong tendency to sue when that doesn't happen; leading to many "malpractice" cases being settled and covered by insurance. Would you rather live in a world with or without modern medicine and doctors?
  - thatcat 2y ago
    You're lazily creating a false dichotomy to try to make the current US medical system seem better by comparing it to something objectively horrible. Compare it to an equally developed country that exists today and yes I would rather live in a modern country without AMA trained doctors, without perverse billing incentives, and without unnecessarily complex administration gatekeeping access to effective and timely medical treatment which frequently leads to reduced quality and length of life.
    - defrost 2y ago
      > You're lazily creating a false dichotomy .. No. Try a less false path. > .. perverse billing incentives, and without unnecessarily complex dministration gatekeeping .. Now you're doing better, these are actual shortcomings of the US health system, considerably more so than death by malpractice.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- 2y ago

refulgentis 2y ago

I get what you're saying, but it's a dizzying problem - the proximate problem to HR in these scenarios isn't that people think HR is bad or worry they'll relay the complaint, it's that HR has no teeth. At Google, I had an...unusual...de-facto manager for 2 years. After declining their offer to join their team, they spent six months engaging in behavior that violated company policies - though not in obvious ways like sexual harassment or violence. Going to HR seemed futile. Even assuming they could keep anonymity, their role is simply to investigate and report to management three levels up. Without clear-cut violations, it becomes a credibility contest. Since upper management selected the middle managers, they're inherently biased toward defending their choices. The situation came to a head between December 1st and January 1st. My performance rating plummeted from "O" (top 10%) to "MI" (bottom 10%) and a technically separate formal warning. Things came to a head because they were nominally leading work that was a huge political warzone between organizations, and they didn't really want to do anything. After I politely demurred their invitation to transfer, they hired a childhood friend as my replacement - they're still launching "new" features with the code I wrote two years ago. I documented various incidents over those six months that violated Google's code of conduct. But even in the best-case scenario: - HR confirms the violations. - They report findings to my third-level manager. - My second-level manager (who chose my de-facto manager) blames me. - The third-level manager (who chose the second-level manager) defers to their choice. I entered Google wondering how they handled professional disagreements. (I was a young CEO for the 5 years prior) Seven years later, I realized they don't - disagreement itself is seen as inappropriate. This dynamic inevitably hurts those lowest in the hierarchy. It's not malicious; everyone believes they're acting appropriately. But once anyone decides to prioritize comfort over strict policy enforcement (a natural human tendency), standard human politics take over. I honestly, swear to god, saw this in abundance at Google in ways I never saw at a fast food job. What I once dismissed as complaints from underperformers now seems depressingly accurate.

SOLAR_FIELDS 2y ago

As long as this is an arm of the company and there is no disinterested third party the incentive will always dictate that HR will place the interest of the company over the employee. As the old adage goes (paraphrased): “It’s difficult to make someone believe something when their salary depends on them not believing it”.

atmavatar 2y ago

The misunderstanding causing confusion here is that for HR, the business is the patient - not the employee. From HR's perspective, an employee is a body part of the business. If helping the employee (i.e., healing the body part) is best for the business, that's what HR does. If terminating the employee (i.e., amputating the body part) is best for the business, that's what HR does.

disqard 2y ago
I liked your analogy, and it sparked a thought -- employees are like fingernails: tools to be used, and trimmed/filed down when not needed. Of course, your analogy is better, because when corporations conduct layoffs to save money to do stock buybacks, that is really much closer to amputating body parts for the sake of a "weight loss" metric.

thatcat 2y ago

I'm not sure the mantra is effective. The 3rd leading cause of death is medical malpractice and yet people are still sick and still go to the doctor.

defrost 2y ago
That quip is less deep and more complex than you think. Look back to when the leading cause of death was "any slight infection" closely followed by any number of other accidents and diseases. Health, saftey, and treatment have now become so effective that death is relatively a great deal rarer in developed countries not at war to the point where people have an expectation of friends and relatives being kept alive and strong tendency to sue when that doesn't happen; leading to many "malpractice" cases being settled and covered by insurance. Would you rather live in a world with or without modern medicine and doctors?
- thatcat 2y ago
  You're lazily creating a false dichotomy to try to make the current US medical system seem better by comparing it to something objectively horrible. Compare it to an equally developed country that exists today and yes I would rather live in a modern country without AMA trained doctors, without perverse billing incentives, and without unnecessarily complex administration gatekeeping access to effective and timely medical treatment which frequently leads to reduced quality and length of life.
  - defrost 2y ago
    > You're lazily creating a false dichotomy .. No. Try a less false path. > .. perverse billing incentives, and without unnecessarily complex dministration gatekeeping .. Now you're doing better, these are actual shortcomings of the US health system, considerably more so than death by malpractice.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
2y ago