17 ms·

I don't think there is a need to "respectfully disagree" to a disrespectful comment. Just like there are terrible dev teams there are terrible HR departments, a

by flexie 13y ago

I don't think there is a need to "respectfully disagree" to a disrespectful comment. Just like there are terrible dev teams there are terrible HR departments, and this sounds like one of them. But as you mention, if developers were to handle everything related to hiring, firing, sick reports, vacation, benefits, contracts, compliance etc. that HR does, I doubt there would be any profit.

Fuxy 13y ago
Are there good HR departments? I haven't had the honor of seeing any so by my book they're classified in the same section as unicorns and fairies.
- lutusp 13y ago
  > Are there good HR departments? That depends. Are they staffed by psychologists? If yes, then no. Psychology and psychological testing are losing credibility very rapidly right now: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/201305/the-nimh-withdraws-support-dsm-5 http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/201305/the-...
  - James_Duval 13y ago
    The article you linked to talks about psychiatry (the DSM is tightly bound to psychiatry, not psychology). I don't know if you meant by including that link that psychologists criticising psychiatrists undermines their credibility, but if that's the case I disagree strongly.
    - lutusp 13y ago
      > The article you linked to talks about psychiatry (the DSM is tightly bound to psychiatry, not psychology). Not so. The DSM is the central authority and diagnostic manual for both psychiatry and clinical psychology. Reference: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/more-diagnosis/201003/how-psychologists-can-help-correct-dsm5 http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/more-diagnosis/201003/ho... > I don't know if you meant by including that link that psychologists criticising psychiatrists undermines their credibility ... I included the link only to show that the DSM is being abandoned by mental health professionals, not to suggest a schism between psychiatry and psychology. The latter has been true for decades and goes without saying.
  - GFischer 13y ago
    There are some psychologists that actually try to be scientific (my GF is doing a postgraduate degree in neuropsychology). Unfortunately, they're overwhelmed by the majority, which are full of pseudoscience. Maybe the more rigorous ones should change their titles, not to be associated with standard "psychologists" anymore?
    - lutusp 13y ago
      > Maybe the more rigorous ones should change their titles, not to be associated with standard "psychologists" anymore? I have been recommending that serious students, those who want to avoid the stigma of psychology, enter the field of neuroscience instead. Neuroscience will eventually replace psychiatry and psychology as the preferred approach to treating what we now call "mental illnesses", most of which are actually biological illnesses with mental symptoms. Reference: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/05/the-scientific-backlash-against-the-dsm.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/05/the-s...
      - fosap 13y ago
        But psychiatry and psychology do not have much in common. Psychiatrists are medicals doctors treating the organ "brain". It's pretty much interchangeable with neuroscience. And before once changes, one should reason very carefully, because they are completely different, and medical school is very hard, while one says that psychology tends to be easy. Also there is not much new about this approach. It's probably as old as psychology. Maybe one could say psychology developed from the former. Pawlov for example was a physiologist. /e Well, no they are not interchangeable. A psychiatrists does not research about bionic eyes. But the way they see human psyche is pretty much.
        lutusp 13y ago
        > But psychiatry and psychology do not have much in common. Psychiatry and psychology are branches of human psychology -- both rely on the study of human psychology for validation. And if human psychology were a rigorous, empirical science, people wouldn't be able to say, as you just have, the psychiatry and psychology do not have much in common. Would you say the same thing about cosmology and particle physics? They're very different -- one studies events at the smallest possible scale, the other at the largest possible scale. But no one suggests that they're unrelated to either each other or to their parent field of physics. The reason is they're sciences. > Psychiatrists are medicals doctors treating the organ "brain". No, that's false -- you just described the field of neuroscience (except that neuroscience is more a research than a medical field at the moment). Psychiatrists are psychologists with a medical degree, they are not neuroscientists, and they treat the mind, not the brain. > It's pretty much interchangeable with neuroscience. Not remotely. Neuroscience studies the brain and nervous system, psychiatry is a branch of psychology that studies the mind. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatry Quote: "Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders." Note the phrase "mental disorders," i.e. disorders of the mind. Not "brain disorders".
  - ttt_ 13y ago
    Not all psychologists see eye-to-eye on the tests issue. In the case mentioned in the article, even a professional that truly trusts the tests should have taken into consideration: 1) make his own assesment and check against the test score, 2) realize that the test is supposedly validated against a sample, and if the candidate falls out of that sample (non-native english speaker), the test should probably be disregarded. Carefull when disregarding a whole field based on preconceptions. All fields have different branches and disagreements. True some fields like psychology have a harder time producing great professionals, in my assesment. I think it's because of it being a young field and it's hard to agree on what the standards are to measure good/bad practice.
    - Fuxy 13y ago
      What are you talking about psychology is awesome i am quite interested in the field however HR's use of psychology by just ticking boxes is not correct. They don't understand it so they are unable to apply it without ticking boxes. That form is completely useless in London for example where about 50% of the population is a non native English speaker.
      - lutusp 13y ago
        > What are you talking about psychology is awesome i am quite interested in the field however HR's use of psychology by just ticking boxes is not correct. I think you should ask yourself some hard questions about psychology. It's true that psychology's current practices are rather unreliable, but it's not obvious how to solve that problem, given the field's subject, the human mind. If the target were the brain, that would be different, but the mind is not the brain.
        Fuxy 13y ago
        If you're trying to say psychology is not an exact science I agree. You can't use psychology to make exact predictions of how people will behave however the more you learn about psychology the better you get at figuring out people and make a educated guess what motivates them. For instance i find myself using MBTI ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator ) a lot when meeting new people and tailoring my approach in a way that is meaningful to them. The solution is simple teach HR psychology but don't make it the be all end all solution in hiring people it should however be a tool in their tool box and they should use their best judgement. Or thrust the IT staffs judgement at least.
- RougeFemme 13y ago
  I've worked in companies with both good and bad HR departments. Currently, our HR department, has intervened in our department hiring processes because they saw incredibly high - and quick - turnover in some groups. In those groups, they have improved the interview process significantly. Not by taking over, but by forcing the managers to be more honest when posting and discussing the positions, by forcing the managers to actually learn "better" interview skills and techniques, by forcing the managers to be more realistic about job requirements (do you really need someone with a Master's degree to staff your standard Tier 1 or 2 helpdesk????? OMG, NO!!!)
antirez 13y ago
The problem with HR is that they do tasks they are not qualified to as a mission. It's the role that's broken, note the teams.
- Xylakant 13y ago
  As with all departments in a company, HR does the tasks that they're assigned to do. It's a task, not a mission. There's scope creep and mission creep as with every task we're used to. If they do stuff that they're not supposed to do and make decisions that they're not supposed to make, it's the team and the person handling the team that's broken and time to reevaluate and adjust what value the team is supposed to bring to the company. That however is not unique to HR but applies to all roles and teams in a company. I worked with great HR people and less than stellar. But I also had to constantly battle system administration that made technical decisions for developers (no, we can't deploy this because ..., you must code your projects in ...) and stellar OPS teams that worked with the dev teams to provide an insane amount of knowledge, experience, insight and help. It's easy to bash HR people just as "regular" employees often bash IT ("They won't provide that simple feature that I've been asking for ever since, just because they hate me."). But calling the role "broken" does not magically make it disappear. Someone needs to handle the employer/employee relationship and all attached nuisances - any organisation with employees that does not handle this role is more broken than any HR department I've ever seen. I'd really hope that we'd be over this and appreciate that other people in our organisation provide value and experience that we maybe can't see at fist glance. Instead we close our eyes and call their role "broken".
  - einhverfr 13y ago
    What, specifically is that task?
    - Xylakant 13y ago
      The task for an HR person? The scope really depends on your organisations needs and on the quality and qualifications of your HR person. In general: Handle or at least support all tasks that are associated with employees and other people in your company. The scope can be as narrow as "do background checks on hires, do the math on their desired pay and tell me how much each one would cost and if there's any red flags" or as broad as "do a first phone call and check out if you think that person is a good fit culturally." Handle all associated paperwork, set up interview dates, handle travel and accommodation arrangements for the prospective hire, ... Handle all paperwork associated with employees, sick leave, keep track of holidays, ... Follow changes in applicable law. Organise team building events. I know of an HR department that organises monthly lunches where people of the company get randomly assigned to groups so that they get to know other people working in the same company, not only their team peers. There's a lot of things you can do as HR person. Not everybody needs everything and not every HR person may have the required qualifications for each task, so you probably just have to figure out what exact set of responsibilities right for your place.
1123581321 13y ago
It might be better to not respond to a disrespectful comment, but when responding, there is a need to respectfully disagree. When someone lowers the quality of the discussion, it is important for everyone else to make up for it. This also communicates the desired standard of conversation to the writer of the disrespectful post.

by flexie 13y ago

Fuxy 13y ago

Are there good HR departments? I haven't had the honor of seeing any so by my book they're classified in the same section as unicorns and fairies.

lutusp 13y ago
> Are there good HR departments? That depends. Are they staffed by psychologists? If yes, then no. Psychology and psychological testing are losing credibility very rapidly right now: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/201305/the-nimh-withdraws-support-dsm-5 http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/201305/the-...
- James_Duval 13y ago
  The article you linked to talks about psychiatry (the DSM is tightly bound to psychiatry, not psychology). I don't know if you meant by including that link that psychologists criticising psychiatrists undermines their credibility, but if that's the case I disagree strongly.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > The article you linked to talks about psychiatry (the DSM is tightly bound to psychiatry, not psychology). Not so. The DSM is the central authority and diagnostic manual for both psychiatry and clinical psychology. Reference: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/more-diagnosis/201003/how-psychologists-can-help-correct-dsm5 http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/more-diagnosis/201003/ho... > I don't know if you meant by including that link that psychologists criticising psychiatrists undermines their credibility ... I included the link only to show that the DSM is being abandoned by mental health professionals, not to suggest a schism between psychiatry and psychology. The latter has been true for decades and goes without saying.
- GFischer 13y ago
  There are some psychologists that actually try to be scientific (my GF is doing a postgraduate degree in neuropsychology). Unfortunately, they're overwhelmed by the majority, which are full of pseudoscience. Maybe the more rigorous ones should change their titles, not to be associated with standard "psychologists" anymore?
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > Maybe the more rigorous ones should change their titles, not to be associated with standard "psychologists" anymore? I have been recommending that serious students, those who want to avoid the stigma of psychology, enter the field of neuroscience instead. Neuroscience will eventually replace psychiatry and psychology as the preferred approach to treating what we now call "mental illnesses", most of which are actually biological illnesses with mental symptoms. Reference: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/05/the-scientific-backlash-against-the-dsm.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/05/the-s...
    - fosap 13y ago
      But psychiatry and psychology do not have much in common. Psychiatrists are medicals doctors treating the organ "brain". It's pretty much interchangeable with neuroscience. And before once changes, one should reason very carefully, because they are completely different, and medical school is very hard, while one says that psychology tends to be easy. Also there is not much new about this approach. It's probably as old as psychology. Maybe one could say psychology developed from the former. Pawlov for example was a physiologist. /e Well, no they are not interchangeable. A psychiatrists does not research about bionic eyes. But the way they see human psyche is pretty much.
      - lutusp 13y ago
        > But psychiatry and psychology do not have much in common. Psychiatry and psychology are branches of human psychology -- both rely on the study of human psychology for validation. And if human psychology were a rigorous, empirical science, people wouldn't be able to say, as you just have, the psychiatry and psychology do not have much in common. Would you say the same thing about cosmology and particle physics? They're very different -- one studies events at the smallest possible scale, the other at the largest possible scale. But no one suggests that they're unrelated to either each other or to their parent field of physics. The reason is they're sciences. > Psychiatrists are medicals doctors treating the organ "brain". No, that's false -- you just described the field of neuroscience (except that neuroscience is more a research than a medical field at the moment). Psychiatrists are psychologists with a medical degree, they are not neuroscientists, and they treat the mind, not the brain. > It's pretty much interchangeable with neuroscience. Not remotely. Neuroscience studies the brain and nervous system, psychiatry is a branch of psychology that studies the mind. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatry Quote: "Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders." Note the phrase "mental disorders," i.e. disorders of the mind. Not "brain disorders".
- ttt_ 13y ago
  Not all psychologists see eye-to-eye on the tests issue. In the case mentioned in the article, even a professional that truly trusts the tests should have taken into consideration: 1) make his own assesment and check against the test score, 2) realize that the test is supposedly validated against a sample, and if the candidate falls out of that sample (non-native english speaker), the test should probably be disregarded. Carefull when disregarding a whole field based on preconceptions. All fields have different branches and disagreements. True some fields like psychology have a harder time producing great professionals, in my assesment. I think it's because of it being a young field and it's hard to agree on what the standards are to measure good/bad practice.
  - Fuxy 13y ago
    What are you talking about psychology is awesome i am quite interested in the field however HR's use of psychology by just ticking boxes is not correct. They don't understand it so they are unable to apply it without ticking boxes. That form is completely useless in London for example where about 50% of the population is a non native English speaker.
    - lutusp 13y ago
      > What are you talking about psychology is awesome i am quite interested in the field however HR's use of psychology by just ticking boxes is not correct. I think you should ask yourself some hard questions about psychology. It's true that psychology's current practices are rather unreliable, but it's not obvious how to solve that problem, given the field's subject, the human mind. If the target were the brain, that would be different, but the mind is not the brain.
      - Fuxy 13y ago
        If you're trying to say psychology is not an exact science I agree. You can't use psychology to make exact predictions of how people will behave however the more you learn about psychology the better you get at figuring out people and make a educated guess what motivates them. For instance i find myself using MBTI ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator ) a lot when meeting new people and tailoring my approach in a way that is meaningful to them. The solution is simple teach HR psychology but don't make it the be all end all solution in hiring people it should however be a tool in their tool box and they should use their best judgement. Or thrust the IT staffs judgement at least.
RougeFemme 13y ago
I've worked in companies with both good and bad HR departments. Currently, our HR department, has intervened in our department hiring processes because they saw incredibly high - and quick - turnover in some groups. In those groups, they have improved the interview process significantly. Not by taking over, but by forcing the managers to be more honest when posting and discussing the positions, by forcing the managers to actually learn "better" interview skills and techniques, by forcing the managers to be more realistic about job requirements (do you really need someone with a Master's degree to staff your standard Tier 1 or 2 helpdesk????? OMG, NO!!!)

antirez 13y ago

The problem with HR is that they do tasks they are not qualified to as a mission. It's the role that's broken, note the teams.

Xylakant 13y ago
As with all departments in a company, HR does the tasks that they're assigned to do. It's a task, not a mission. There's scope creep and mission creep as with every task we're used to. If they do stuff that they're not supposed to do and make decisions that they're not supposed to make, it's the team and the person handling the team that's broken and time to reevaluate and adjust what value the team is supposed to bring to the company. That however is not unique to HR but applies to all roles and teams in a company. I worked with great HR people and less than stellar. But I also had to constantly battle system administration that made technical decisions for developers (no, we can't deploy this because ..., you must code your projects in ...) and stellar OPS teams that worked with the dev teams to provide an insane amount of knowledge, experience, insight and help. It's easy to bash HR people just as "regular" employees often bash IT ("They won't provide that simple feature that I've been asking for ever since, just because they hate me."). But calling the role "broken" does not magically make it disappear. Someone needs to handle the employer/employee relationship and all attached nuisances - any organisation with employees that does not handle this role is more broken than any HR department I've ever seen. I'd really hope that we'd be over this and appreciate that other people in our organisation provide value and experience that we maybe can't see at fist glance. Instead we close our eyes and call their role "broken".
- einhverfr 13y ago
  What, specifically is that task?
  - Xylakant 13y ago
    The task for an HR person? The scope really depends on your organisations needs and on the quality and qualifications of your HR person. In general: Handle or at least support all tasks that are associated with employees and other people in your company. The scope can be as narrow as "do background checks on hires, do the math on their desired pay and tell me how much each one would cost and if there's any red flags" or as broad as "do a first phone call and check out if you think that person is a good fit culturally." Handle all associated paperwork, set up interview dates, handle travel and accommodation arrangements for the prospective hire, ... Handle all paperwork associated with employees, sick leave, keep track of holidays, ... Follow changes in applicable law. Organise team building events. I know of an HR department that organises monthly lunches where people of the company get randomly assigned to groups so that they get to know other people working in the same company, not only their team peers. There's a lot of things you can do as HR person. Not everybody needs everything and not every HR person may have the required qualifications for each task, so you probably just have to figure out what exact set of responsibilities right for your place.

1123581321 13y ago

It might be better to not respond to a disrespectful comment, but when responding, there is a need to respectfully disagree. When someone lowers the quality of the discussion, it is important for everyone else to make up for it. This also communicates the desired standard of conversation to the writer of the disrespectful post.