13 ms·

Looks like Kivin was surprised when HR told his manager that he requested to be transferred. His manager then used this information against him, by putting him

by DevX101 12y ago

Looks like Kivin was surprised when HR told his manager that he requested to be transferred. His manager then used this information against him, by putting him into a 'performance improvement program' which blocks transfers to any other group for some period of time. Let me let Kivin and any one else working for a company in on a little secret. HR is not your friend. HR is not there to protect you and your career. HR is there to protect the company AGAINST you. To the extent that your goals and the company's do not conflict, HR can be helpful. (Need some help with your health insurance or your 401k? HR is awesome!) But if you're going to HR about an issue that could be damaging to the company, HR will gladly listen to you sharing confidential information while quietly working with the leadership to build a case against you or protect themselves. If you're caught in a situation that could potentially lead to a legal dispute with the company (serious conflict with mgmt as seen here, discrimination, etc), make sure you document EVERYTHING, put as much in writing/email as possible and tread carefully before sharing too much info with HR. They won't be in your corner when shit hits the fan.

lordbusiness 12y ago
I had exactly the same revelation during a protracted encounter I had at $NAME_WITHHELD - huge admired company - after working there for several years, and coming into an ethical and legal conflict against my division director. It was made abundantly clear that the goals of HR do not align with our notions of HR being champions for the workers. I appreciate this sounds blindingly obvious and almost forehead slapping to anyone who hasn't been on the sharp end of this, but let me assure you that when you are on the sharp end, this will be driven home with fervour.
- mgkimsal 12y ago
  Agreed - been in a similar-sounding situation (nothing as big as the Amazon story). We are referred to a 'Resources' for a reason.
- ThrowawayPhilae 12y ago
  You know, I was sad that the most upvoted link today was this story and not the awesome picture sent by the comet probe. Do people here really think this is today's most significant event ? And I was thinking that the same story about $NAME_ALSO_WITHHELD instead of Amazon would never have made it to the front page. So I was curious if $NAME_WITHHELD and $NAME_ALSO_WITHHELD was the same company and looked into it. Took me one minute and apparently it was...
  - sp332 12y ago
    Don't worry, this story has an hour head-start. The photo will probably end up with more upvotes.
  - lordbusiness 12y ago
    I have mixed feelings on this; on the one hand this is indeed a 'gossip news site' flavour article, and the reactions of the commenters in this thread largely follow the regular human response of 'burn the witch'. I'm not interested in the minutia of the case, nor am I interested in damning the manager lady who is not having her just day in court right now. However, I do believe this is somewhat Hacker News worthy in that it serves as a cautionary tale. As someone who has been in the industry for 20 years, it's weird to think of myself as an old-timer who has been around the block, but a significant demographic of HN readership are very young and inexperienced graduates; it likely serves them well to be aware of these complex organizational issues and how they sometimes manifest.
    - ThrowawayPhilae 12y ago
      You are right I guess. Note that I did not feel sad yesterday when the opensourced .NET framework got twice as many votes as the probe landing. This was a truly significant event for hacher/startup communauty. Anyway, I got the downvotes I deserve for telling people what they should be interested in. Ironically, in the comet probe threads on various forums there was many (downvoted) comments saying we should spend money on more important things...
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
- vladimir55 12y ago
  $NAME_WITHHELD is apparently (edit: Not) Apple. Someone else here has figured it out and is now hellbanned.
  - lordbusiness 12y ago
    Erm, I hope I haven't been hell banned if this refers to me. I have never worked for Apple, nor was I talking about them, in my post.
    - omni 12y ago
      Replying to let you know it's not you.
      - lordbusiness 12y ago
        Thank you!
    - vladimir55 12y ago
      Oops, sorry I thought you were the founder of Nest. So ThrowawayPhilea was hellbanned for The "Philea is more important" part ? Harsh
      - lordbusiness 12y ago
        Heh - if only I was smart enough to be the founder of nest. :-)
      - dang 12y ago
        Not banned. Same situation as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8597615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8597615.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
switch007 12y ago
"HR is not your friend" needs to be standard career advice. My experiences with HR: - Often staffed by aggressive, yet very sociable and smiley people. They would nail you to a cross if the directors demanded it. - Even a basic knowledge of labour laws is not a pre-requisite for a career in HR. That is because there is little regard for them by the C-levels. - Try and avoid them. Do not go running to HR. Sort it out yourself or work it out with your boss. If the problem is your boss, it's likely that they're much friendlier with HR and treated with much more respect than you. If you do go to HR, think hard about how you are respected and viewed at the company.
- ssharp 12y ago
  "Even a basic knowledge of labour laws is not a pre-requisite for a career in HR." This is the surprising thing to me. My wife works in HR, but is also an attorney and her boss and boss's boss are also attorneys. They run their department substantially more in line with federal and state laws than just about any other I've encountered. When we're talking with friends and other people who work in HR, she usually later tells me everything they're doing wrong and it's interesting how far off-base many companies are.
  - switch007 12y ago
    I wasn't terribly surprised. Being ignorant of labour laws that empower employees (or at least appear to) is a convenient excuse for treating staff horribly in certain situations. Of course I've been in situations where HR don't know the laws and others where they chose to ignore them or denied their existence.
    - shepardrtc 12y ago
      I worked for a company that knew enough about labor laws to fire half the maintenance staff and then make the remaining supervisors all salaried "assistant managers" so they could keep them on-call 24/7 and work them as much overtime as needed. Manipulating the position requirements and duties on paper to make it seem like they were more white-collar than blue-collar was easy. When it comes to saving money, HR departments educate themselves rather well in regards to the law.
cyphunk 12y ago
This is a constant sentiment I hear over and over. If there is a company that wishes to change this situation they would probably have to take the question of "ethics" completely out of HR's hands and into it's own department that provides obligations and confidentiality promises to employees (that can be enforceable to whatever extent is possible).
- ohitsdom 12y ago
  Many companies do have this, sometimes called an ombudsman.
  - icelancer 12y ago
    Hell, we do this and my company has annual revenue under $1MM for 2014 and just around $1MM for 2015. It's ridiculous that this doesn't exist for larger companies; we pay basically NOTHING to have this on retainer for external clients and internal processes. We've never used it. but I am so happy it's there.
    - hawkice 12y ago
      Wait, how do you already know what your revenue numbers for 2015 will be?
      - mahyarm 12y ago
        I'm guessing secure subscription contracts of some sort?
        icelancer 12y ago
        Yeah. And just a 90% confidence interval projection basically.
edraferi 12y ago
HR doesn't even have a useful offensive role in most companies. In theory they should identify staffing requirements, find great people, create competitive benefits packages to attract them, and run snappy business processes to get them in the door. Usually they wind up mangling the staffing requirements provided by the managers, farming applicant discovery out to headhunters, cutting corners on benefits to boost profits, and put new hires and their target teams through byzantine processes.
ssharp 12y ago
I don't know how big of a "secret" it actually is -- I think it's just that most people make assumptions about what HR does and why they exist. It's less that the information is hidden and more that people just don't bother looking for it. My wife is an attorney who works in HR and labor relations. HR existing to protect the company was one of the first things she learned in either an HR class or employment law class.
- Iftheshoefits 12y ago
  It's a "secret" because the manuals that HR produces contain explicit or implicit statements to the effect that HR is there to help the employee with things like benefits and conflicts with other employees or managers. Most people aren't ever caught up in a tangle in which HR's true purpose was exposed to them, so HR gets away with these little lies and maintain the illusion that they're there to help employees.
vetler 12y ago
It would be in the interest of the company to catch problems as early as possible and difuse the situation. Seems that Amazon has failed on multiple levels to understand the situation.
q2 12y ago
>>>"HR is not your friend. HR is not there to protect you and your career. HR is there to protect the company AGAINST you." Golden words and everyone especially new joinees need to understand.
TheCondor 12y ago
I know more than a few people that leave when the company spins up an hr group... HR is a purely political entity within most companies.
pinaceae 12y ago
of course not, that would be the worker's council and the union. you silly Americans :) HR employees can be fired, hence are under pressure, hence are on the side of the company. Works council members in developed nations are protected, cannot be fired on a whim and get fully paid while fighting for you. As a European working in the US it feels like time travel when it comes to work, health, banking. Just had a discussion about why Google Health has failed - while Austrian citizens already enjoy an electronic health record, tracking their medication across doctors. So many patriots here will defend the US as the greatest country, no matter what - but actively oppose the very fabric of this nation, the government, with its rules and regulations to protect the people. Very hard to wrap my head around this.
- blumkvist 12y ago
  Worker Unions? You mean the mob?
  - e12e 12y ago
    The US has a proud history of leveraging criminals for discrediting unions. And the legacy in popular culture is that unions lead to organized crime. Good luck in your reciding, sorry "recovering", economy.
  - opendais 12y ago
    Do you eat meat? 'cause a number of the rendering plants that produce animal feed are still mob owned.
    - throwawayornot 12y ago
      link?
      - opendais 12y ago
        "Report to the President and the Attorney General" https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/102922NCJRS.pdf https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/102922NCJRS.pdf "Organized Crime and the Meat Industry: A Study in Competition " http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2m3avv/i_am_mike_rowe_and_i_cant_seem_to_hold_a_job_ive/cm0k6wz http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2m3avv/i_am_mike_rowe_... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jackson_(gangster) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jackson_(gangster) It was partially sarcastic, partially not. In 2014, its about as relevant as complaining about links between the Mafia & Unions. They used to be connected in places but it was relatively small scale (e.g. local) and not on the scale people like the parent claimed.
eyeareque 12y ago
I think this depends where you work. I've been at places where they were so scared you would sue them for something, that it was near impossible to get fired. HR would make it extremely difficult for managers to put people on a performance improvement plans. However, this was in California where it may be different than other companies. I've even heard managers complain that HR was not on their side when they wanted to fire a employee that was terrible.
alphadevx 12y ago
Excellent comment. HR are the people who refer to us humans as "resources" (read: to be exploited), enough said.
CWuestefeld 12y ago
It's not even that HR is allied with the company as such. They are their own little political unit, and sometimes those politics lead to situations that benefit no one at all other than HR themselves. As a manager, I'm frequently helping the personnel on my team work to overcome the barriers that HR erects in their way. HR seems to just have an innate love for policies, the more the better. Even when those policies do nothing to protect the company or the employee, and actively interfere with our efficiency, HR will stick to them. I think it's just because having to back off a silly policy makes the other policies appear weaker. So I see that employment law in the USA makes HR specialists important in a company of any size, but that doesn't mean that they very much improve things beyond that domain.
- walshemj 12y ago
  BINGO how do you think stack ranking and PRP got push so had so some hr director can get a bonus never mind you destroy morale and force all your good people out.
jwilliams 12y ago
This is correct advice in some situations - and I have had this experience, but certainly not universally. I know people that say that about their IT departments. Or legal. Or marketing. Sales. I know a lot of very high performing HR teams. The best growth companies in SF/SV have amazing HR teams. They're responsible for a whole lot more than your 401k. If you're in an org where X is not your friend - then you're probably in a large, politicized organization. Best advice is to either accept that and adapt, or get out and find somewhere that fits your ethos.
- mavelikara 12y ago
  How does one recognize amazing HR teams? Please give some specifics on what they are responsible for beyond the 401K.
  - jwilliams 12y ago
    Not entirely sure why I got downvoted. I guess people don't like HR teams. A great HR team? Showing up on your first day and having everything you need. A laptop that does what it needs, a pass, someone to induct you, materials that get you started. Making you feel welcome. Being productive and part of the team. Sure, your manager and team are part of that, but HR facilities this (In most cases, teams are woeful at doing this). A great office environment. Making sure people have the right skills. And not just technical - managerial skills and support. Encouraging teams and cross-functional discussion. Coaching hiring managers on the best ways to interview. Making sure people are greeted properly. Interviews are kept. Presenting an employee brand that makes people want to work at the company. Having a performance review system that doesn't suck and gives people the feedback they need to get better. Sure, people hate then, but people also crave feedback. An office environment that suits the culture and makes people productive. Making sure people are getting the emotional support they need. Ever had a co-worker who's depressed, suicidal? Someone that has committed suicide. Or a death in the company? Someone that has a family tragedy? Organizing counseling for the team? HR steps up. It's easy to brush over these things until they happen. You appreciate a professional when it does. Ever needed someone walked off the premises because they are threatening? Sexual harassment? Health and safety violations. Easy to say, meh, these aren't important – but, no, they are. Blocked fire exits kill people. Toxic cultures sink companies. .. And yes. Making sure people get paid. That the health insurance works. There are plenty of examples where this doesn't work. There are plenty of sucky implementations. Performance reviews generally suck. But I can assure that the growth tech companies wanting to kick goals are getting these things right.
kelukelugames 12y ago
Using this opportunity to plug the book Corporate Confidential. It will save your career. http://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Confidential-Secrets-Company-Know---/dp/0312337361/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415893862&sr=8-1&keywords=corporate+confidential http://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Confidential-Secrets-Company... A few takeaways. 1. Performance improvement plans are not for performance improvement. They are for firing employees. Management already formed an irreversible negative view. It is too late. 2. You cannot win a case against the company. Because a) companies have more resources and b) even if you do win then other companies will mark you as a troublemaker. Getting hired is going to get a lot harder. 3. If you insist on fighting then do document everything. Supposedly you need a few months of notes. In other words, being called a slur once or twice does not make a hostile work environment. If HR is unaware then the company is not liable, but if you share your notes then you won't win the case anyway. There are a few narrow forms of discrimination that are claimable but the best option is to keep your head down and find a new job. 4. Do not document anything on company software or networks. My friend got to learn what Data Loss prevention software really did. 5. HR has zero legal obligation to keep your secrets. Their job is to identify threats to the company. They literally get paid to share your secrets. Bonus anectode: I went to HR and asked "Are you legally required to keep things I tell you confidential? For example, if I tell you I want to leave then will you tell my boss?" Her answer to my second question was no, but guess what my boss and I talked about the next day!
- gregd 12y ago
  So basically that book could consist of one page. "You're screwed"
  - kelukelugames 12y ago
    Heh. It's not that bad. 1) Very few of us suffer from the legal definition of discrimination. (Being mistaken for the secretary sucks but it's not illegal.) The book gives us realistic options. 2) Most of the time we just deal with an unfavorable boss or upper management. The book gives more actionable options there.
- chaostheory 12y ago
Iftheshoefits 12y ago
This just can't be emphasized enough. My view is that this view should be expanded to include most of management. They are in a different social class, because they are employees the company values more than the employees who do the work of the company (e.g. produce products, maintain software, whatever). HR is valued more for all the reasons listed. Management serve a similar purpose, but in a more front-line kind of way, and also are guardians of the only resource that matters in a company (direct and indirect expenses). I suppose it makes me a cynical person but my view is that unless I have a pre-existing personal relationship, I assume that anybody in management views their employees as tools to use for their own political ambitions within the company, whether they need a scapegoat to cover their own incompetence or a proxy to claim glory and credit for jobs well done.
kvargs 12y ago
You're totally right. I thought HR was at minimum a neutral party - at Amazon your HR rep is called your "HR Business Partner". That's complete baloney. She was basically there to do whatever my manager and the VP wanted her to do. Things I told her in confidence (like having two transfer opportunities) were immediately relayed to my manager. It is such a betrayal of trust. I would hope that other HR departments in other companies are different but I think that's overly optimistic.
Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
HR is there to protect the company from all staff - yes you but also your manager and his/her ignorance of employment law. Maybe it's just a European thing but I've seen more HR professionals despair at the actions of managers than staff. Yes, they may help him/her get rid of you but what they're really terrified of is his ill advised actions which open the company up to a massive liability.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Maybe it's just a European thing but I've seen more HR professionals despair at the actions of managers than staff. Its a power-balance thing. Managers have more power vis-a-vis HR staff than line staff do, thus are more likely to be able to get away with persisting in things that HR staff doesn't like. So, more likely a source of HR staff "despair". Employees -- unless backed by a manager -- are more likely to meekly acquiesce.
  - masklinn 12y ago
    I think what Tyrannosaurs meant is that, because of stronger employee protection, a rash manager in europe can very easily open the company to huge liabilities. One of the primary HR jobs (if not the primary one) is to avoid the company being liable. The prospect of facing a labor board and finding the company be 100% at fault is likely to make them despair.
    - Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
      Yep. My personal view from my interactions with HR (as a manager looking at redundancy, poor performance, sickness) is that they're best viewed as the Employment Law team.
    - pgeorgi 12y ago
      On the other hand, when speaking about US/EU differences, I don't think many EU countries have laws to grant enormous $$$ in punitive damages. Germany certainly hasn't - when you win, you typically get your legal fees and damages (as in: what the court decided you _actually_ lost). So there isn't _that_ much of a liability - the main concern for companies is probably that they'll have to stop mistreating their other employees, too. OTOH, there's a separate branch of jurisdiction especially for employment related issues which is generally employee friendly and for the employee a lawsuit is free and doesn't require legal representation on the lowest level.
snowwrestler 12y ago
This is all true. But what I haven't seen in this thread is advice on what employees should do, instead of going to HR. My experience is that it can be invaluable to make personal connections with one or more management-type folks outside of your team. This is sometimes called a "mentor," although I think that term is pretty cliche at this point, and puts too much pressure on the relationship. The point is to have someone a bit more versed in the internal politics, with whom you can have informal conversations before doing anything dramatic--like going to HR or emailing your boss's boss's boss. They can help you predict the likely outcomes of those actions. And they might also be able to end-run around the "bad layer" in your management. For example, they might be able to go to another senior person and informally pass along the word that a key issue is not being addressed...without naming names. How to build those relationships? Take people out to lunch or coffee. Have a conversation. Ask them how they got to where they are, what they wish they'd known earlier, etc. Often you can figure out pretty quickly whether you get along with them or not.
- lifeisstillgood 12y ago
  So true. And the essence of networking
shin_lao 12y ago
I can't upvote you enough. Nothing cynical but remember the HR is paid by the company, not by you.
cc438 12y ago
I'm surprised that HR was immediately on the manager's side. I'd expect HR to protect/defend management that is above their work group, they write the checks after all. However, there is no incentive to protect anyone on the same level or below their reporting manager. HR exists to defend against litigation and conspiring with Kivin's manager worked directly against that purpose. Their actions resulted in a fat public lawsuit where winning won't matter. The findings related to the ethics of Amazon's ad platform are damning, their corporate customers would love to recoup misappropriated advertising dollars with their army of attorneys on retainer.
- hga 12y ago
  It's long standing Amazon policy to engage in "fat public lawsuits" over employment. So while we might argue the wisdom of that, HR not worrying about that prospect is in alignment with the higher levels of management.
aridiculous 12y ago
How's this for an idea: by law, many/all HR duties in corporations larger than X, must be conducted by independent, outside firms hired by the original corporation. They would be like tax auditor firms or credit card security auditors, but more involved. This way, HR would more likely be incentivized to work for both employee and employer (because they are audited themselves), except in extreme corrupt cases. HR practice would also become a lot better, as it became more competitive and profitable. People with more knowledge of labor law and history would thrive. Yes, there would still be stooges working in these outside HR firms, but at least they would stooge for the real laws in place rather than corporate policies.
- mahyarm 12y ago
  People who know who their real customers are, serve their customers. I don't know how effective it would be in the end. Also the cases you cite, they're go-between firms where the power relationship is obvious. Big government tells smaller corp to do x, or big credit card firm tells smaller firm to do y. For employee's, the power relationship isn't there unless you have unions, and union organizations would be ones you would go to in these cases.
incision 12y ago
>"HR is not your friend. HR is not there to protect you and your career." Right. Being a friend, advocate and protector is the role of a professional union. Unfortunately, the labor in tech seems convinced that each is better off on his or her own despite being up against a cartel of behemoths [1]. 1: http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/ http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-...
doomspork 12y ago
> Looks like Kivin was surprised when HR told his manager that he requested to be transferred. His manager then used this information against him, by putting him into a 'performance improvement program' which blocks transfers to any other group for some period of time. I learned this one the hard way myself. The change wasn't motivated by any grief or frustration, I was simply looking for career growth since my role wasn't offering me any new opportunities. Instead of what I thought would happen, my boss identifying I could offer the company more in that new role, he was offended I'd ask to change teams and retaliated. I ultimately left the organization soon after because he had made it an absolute nightmare. > HR is not your friend. HR is not there to protect you and your career. HR is there to protect the company AGAINST you. This was very shocking to me to realize early on in my career, I'd always heard that HR was on my team. I quickly learned that they're just there to keep the assembly line happy and functioning.
- ufmace 12y ago
  As in many things in life, the people and organizations that are actually on your team are perfectly obvious, and they never feel the need to tell anybody how on your team they are. The only people who feel the need to tell you how on your team they are would be the ones that are not on your team at all, and expect to get some kind of benefit for the people whose team they are actually on by convincing you otherwise. I.E. by screwing you over.
reshambabble 12y ago
I learned this lesson the hard way. I worked for a company that had a huge culture problem. I made the mistake of telling the truth to HR about it, and suddenly I started going from beyond excellent performance reviews to strangely poor performance reviews about my "personality" without any explanation (and even resistance when I tried to ask about it). They were slowly documenting enough negative evidence to let me go. Unfortunately New York is an "at-will" state, so I could never file a wrongful termination suit. The power is one-sided.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
pasbesoin 12y ago
Seen this repeatedly in multiple corporate settings. The sooner you learn it, the better you may fare. (Including sometimes making decisions to "get out", preemptively.) Once you understand it, it can also help explain some of the staffing and personalities you will encounter in HR departments. P.S. I'll add that, in my experience, this extends to most performance reviews. Their primary function is to reenforce top-down policy and decisions. They are not really, primarily, about assessing you and planning (real) improvements. They are about laying the paperwork for whatever Management decides. Perhaps this sounds overly cynical. And for favored employees, these processes may align more with their own interests. Even then, favored one year may not extend to the next year.

by DevX101 12y ago

lordbusiness 12y ago

I had exactly the same revelation during a protracted encounter I had at $NAME_WITHHELD - huge admired company - after working there for several years, and coming into an ethical and legal conflict against my division director. It was made abundantly clear that the goals of HR do not align with our notions of HR being champions for the workers. I appreciate this sounds blindingly obvious and almost forehead slapping to anyone who hasn't been on the sharp end of this, but let me assure you that when you are on the sharp end, this will be driven home with fervour.

mgkimsal 12y ago
Agreed - been in a similar-sounding situation (nothing as big as the Amazon story). We are referred to a 'Resources' for a reason.
ThrowawayPhilae 12y ago
You know, I was sad that the most upvoted link today was this story and not the awesome picture sent by the comet probe. Do people here really think this is today's most significant event ? And I was thinking that the same story about $NAME_ALSO_WITHHELD instead of Amazon would never have made it to the front page. So I was curious if $NAME_WITHHELD and $NAME_ALSO_WITHHELD was the same company and looked into it. Took me one minute and apparently it was...
- sp332 12y ago
  Don't worry, this story has an hour head-start. The photo will probably end up with more upvotes.
- lordbusiness 12y ago
  I have mixed feelings on this; on the one hand this is indeed a 'gossip news site' flavour article, and the reactions of the commenters in this thread largely follow the regular human response of 'burn the witch'. I'm not interested in the minutia of the case, nor am I interested in damning the manager lady who is not having her just day in court right now. However, I do believe this is somewhat Hacker News worthy in that it serves as a cautionary tale. As someone who has been in the industry for 20 years, it's weird to think of myself as an old-timer who has been around the block, but a significant demographic of HN readership are very young and inexperienced graduates; it likely serves them well to be aware of these complex organizational issues and how they sometimes manifest.
  - ThrowawayPhilae 12y ago
    You are right I guess. Note that I did not feel sad yesterday when the opensourced .NET framework got twice as many votes as the probe landing. This was a truly significant event for hacher/startup communauty. Anyway, I got the downvotes I deserve for telling people what they should be interested in. Ironically, in the comet probe threads on various forums there was many (downvoted) comments saying we should spend money on more important things...
- Dylan16807 12y ago
vladimir55 12y ago
$NAME_WITHHELD is apparently (edit: Not) Apple. Someone else here has figured it out and is now hellbanned.
- lordbusiness 12y ago
  Erm, I hope I haven't been hell banned if this refers to me. I have never worked for Apple, nor was I talking about them, in my post.
  - omni 12y ago
    Replying to let you know it's not you.
    - lordbusiness 12y ago
      Thank you!
  - vladimir55 12y ago
    Oops, sorry I thought you were the founder of Nest. So ThrowawayPhilea was hellbanned for The "Philea is more important" part ? Harsh
    - lordbusiness 12y ago
      Heh - if only I was smart enough to be the founder of nest. :-)
    - dang 12y ago
      Not banned. Same situation as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8597615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8597615.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

switch007 12y ago

"HR is not your friend" needs to be standard career advice. My experiences with HR: - Often staffed by aggressive, yet very sociable and smiley people. They would nail you to a cross if the directors demanded it. - Even a basic knowledge of labour laws is not a pre-requisite for a career in HR. That is because there is little regard for them by the C-levels. - Try and avoid them. Do not go running to HR. Sort it out yourself or work it out with your boss. If the problem is your boss, it's likely that they're much friendlier with HR and treated with much more respect than you. If you do go to HR, think hard about how you are respected and viewed at the company.

ssharp 12y ago
"Even a basic knowledge of labour laws is not a pre-requisite for a career in HR." This is the surprising thing to me. My wife works in HR, but is also an attorney and her boss and boss's boss are also attorneys. They run their department substantially more in line with federal and state laws than just about any other I've encountered. When we're talking with friends and other people who work in HR, she usually later tells me everything they're doing wrong and it's interesting how far off-base many companies are.
- switch007 12y ago
  I wasn't terribly surprised. Being ignorant of labour laws that empower employees (or at least appear to) is a convenient excuse for treating staff horribly in certain situations. Of course I've been in situations where HR don't know the laws and others where they chose to ignore them or denied their existence.
  - shepardrtc 12y ago
    I worked for a company that knew enough about labor laws to fire half the maintenance staff and then make the remaining supervisors all salaried "assistant managers" so they could keep them on-call 24/7 and work them as much overtime as needed. Manipulating the position requirements and duties on paper to make it seem like they were more white-collar than blue-collar was easy. When it comes to saving money, HR departments educate themselves rather well in regards to the law.

cyphunk 12y ago

This is a constant sentiment I hear over and over. If there is a company that wishes to change this situation they would probably have to take the question of "ethics" completely out of HR's hands and into it's own department that provides obligations and confidentiality promises to employees (that can be enforceable to whatever extent is possible).

ohitsdom 12y ago
Many companies do have this, sometimes called an ombudsman.
- icelancer 12y ago
  Hell, we do this and my company has annual revenue under $1MM for 2014 and just around $1MM for 2015. It's ridiculous that this doesn't exist for larger companies; we pay basically NOTHING to have this on retainer for external clients and internal processes. We've never used it. but I am so happy it's there.
  - hawkice 12y ago
    Wait, how do you already know what your revenue numbers for 2015 will be?
    - mahyarm 12y ago
      I'm guessing secure subscription contracts of some sort?
      - icelancer 12y ago
        Yeah. And just a 90% confidence interval projection basically.

edraferi 12y ago

HR doesn't even have a useful offensive role in most companies. In theory they should identify staffing requirements, find great people, create competitive benefits packages to attract them, and run snappy business processes to get them in the door. Usually they wind up mangling the staffing requirements provided by the managers, farming applicant discovery out to headhunters, cutting corners on benefits to boost profits, and put new hires and their target teams through byzantine processes.

ssharp 12y ago

I don't know how big of a "secret" it actually is -- I think it's just that most people make assumptions about what HR does and why they exist. It's less that the information is hidden and more that people just don't bother looking for it. My wife is an attorney who works in HR and labor relations. HR existing to protect the company was one of the first things she learned in either an HR class or employment law class.

Iftheshoefits 12y ago
It's a "secret" because the manuals that HR produces contain explicit or implicit statements to the effect that HR is there to help the employee with things like benefits and conflicts with other employees or managers. Most people aren't ever caught up in a tangle in which HR's true purpose was exposed to them, so HR gets away with these little lies and maintain the illusion that they're there to help employees.

vetler 12y ago

It would be in the interest of the company to catch problems as early as possible and difuse the situation. Seems that Amazon has failed on multiple levels to understand the situation.

q2 12y ago

>>>"HR is not your friend. HR is not there to protect you and your career. HR is there to protect the company AGAINST you." Golden words and everyone especially new joinees need to understand.

TheCondor 12y ago

I know more than a few people that leave when the company spins up an hr group... HR is a purely political entity within most companies.

pinaceae 12y ago

of course not, that would be the worker's council and the union. you silly Americans :) HR employees can be fired, hence are under pressure, hence are on the side of the company. Works council members in developed nations are protected, cannot be fired on a whim and get fully paid while fighting for you. As a European working in the US it feels like time travel when it comes to work, health, banking. Just had a discussion about why Google Health has failed - while Austrian citizens already enjoy an electronic health record, tracking their medication across doctors. So many patriots here will defend the US as the greatest country, no matter what - but actively oppose the very fabric of this nation, the government, with its rules and regulations to protect the people. Very hard to wrap my head around this.

blumkvist 12y ago
Worker Unions? You mean the mob?
- e12e 12y ago
  The US has a proud history of leveraging criminals for discrediting unions. And the legacy in popular culture is that unions lead to organized crime. Good luck in your reciding, sorry "recovering", economy.
- opendais 12y ago
  Do you eat meat? 'cause a number of the rendering plants that produce animal feed are still mob owned.
  - throwawayornot 12y ago
    link?
    - opendais 12y ago
      "Report to the President and the Attorney General" https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/102922NCJRS.pdf https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/102922NCJRS.pdf "Organized Crime and the Meat Industry: A Study in Competition " http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2m3avv/i_am_mike_rowe_and_i_cant_seem_to_hold_a_job_ive/cm0k6wz http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2m3avv/i_am_mike_rowe_... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jackson_(gangster) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jackson_(gangster) It was partially sarcastic, partially not. In 2014, its about as relevant as complaining about links between the Mafia & Unions. They used to be connected in places but it was relatively small scale (e.g. local) and not on the scale people like the parent claimed.

eyeareque 12y ago

I think this depends where you work. I've been at places where they were so scared you would sue them for something, that it was near impossible to get fired. HR would make it extremely difficult for managers to put people on a performance improvement plans. However, this was in California where it may be different than other companies. I've even heard managers complain that HR was not on their side when they wanted to fire a employee that was terrible.

alphadevx 12y ago

Excellent comment. HR are the people who refer to us humans as "resources" (read: to be exploited), enough said.

CWuestefeld 12y ago

It's not even that HR is allied with the company as such. They are their own little political unit, and sometimes those politics lead to situations that benefit no one at all other than HR themselves. As a manager, I'm frequently helping the personnel on my team work to overcome the barriers that HR erects in their way. HR seems to just have an innate love for policies, the more the better. Even when those policies do nothing to protect the company or the employee, and actively interfere with our efficiency, HR will stick to them. I think it's just because having to back off a silly policy makes the other policies appear weaker. So I see that employment law in the USA makes HR specialists important in a company of any size, but that doesn't mean that they very much improve things beyond that domain.

walshemj 12y ago
BINGO how do you think stack ranking and PRP got push so had so some hr director can get a bonus never mind you destroy morale and force all your good people out.

jwilliams 12y ago

This is correct advice in some situations - and I have had this experience, but certainly not universally. I know people that say that about their IT departments. Or legal. Or marketing. Sales. I know a lot of very high performing HR teams. The best growth companies in SF/SV have amazing HR teams. They're responsible for a whole lot more than your 401k. If you're in an org where X is not your friend - then you're probably in a large, politicized organization. Best advice is to either accept that and adapt, or get out and find somewhere that fits your ethos.

mavelikara 12y ago
How does one recognize amazing HR teams? Please give some specifics on what they are responsible for beyond the 401K.
- jwilliams 12y ago
  Not entirely sure why I got downvoted. I guess people don't like HR teams. A great HR team? Showing up on your first day and having everything you need. A laptop that does what it needs, a pass, someone to induct you, materials that get you started. Making you feel welcome. Being productive and part of the team. Sure, your manager and team are part of that, but HR facilities this (In most cases, teams are woeful at doing this). A great office environment. Making sure people have the right skills. And not just technical - managerial skills and support. Encouraging teams and cross-functional discussion. Coaching hiring managers on the best ways to interview. Making sure people are greeted properly. Interviews are kept. Presenting an employee brand that makes people want to work at the company. Having a performance review system that doesn't suck and gives people the feedback they need to get better. Sure, people hate then, but people also crave feedback. An office environment that suits the culture and makes people productive. Making sure people are getting the emotional support they need. Ever had a co-worker who's depressed, suicidal? Someone that has committed suicide. Or a death in the company? Someone that has a family tragedy? Organizing counseling for the team? HR steps up. It's easy to brush over these things until they happen. You appreciate a professional when it does. Ever needed someone walked off the premises because they are threatening? Sexual harassment? Health and safety violations. Easy to say, meh, these aren't important – but, no, they are. Blocked fire exits kill people. Toxic cultures sink companies. .. And yes. Making sure people get paid. That the health insurance works. There are plenty of examples where this doesn't work. There are plenty of sucky implementations. Performance reviews generally suck. But I can assure that the growth tech companies wanting to kick goals are getting these things right.

kelukelugames 12y ago

Using this opportunity to plug the book Corporate Confidential. It will save your career. http://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Confidential-Secrets-Company-Know---/dp/0312337361/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415893862&sr=8-1&keywords=corporate+confidential http://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Confidential-Secrets-Company... A few takeaways. 1. Performance improvement plans are not for performance improvement. They are for firing employees. Management already formed an irreversible negative view. It is too late. 2. You cannot win a case against the company. Because a) companies have more resources and b) even if you do win then other companies will mark you as a troublemaker. Getting hired is going to get a lot harder. 3. If you insist on fighting then do document everything. Supposedly you need a few months of notes. In other words, being called a slur once or twice does not make a hostile work environment. If HR is unaware then the company is not liable, but if you share your notes then you won't win the case anyway. There are a few narrow forms of discrimination that are claimable but the best option is to keep your head down and find a new job. 4. Do not document anything on company software or networks. My friend got to learn what Data Loss prevention software really did. 5. HR has zero legal obligation to keep your secrets. Their job is to identify threats to the company. They literally get paid to share your secrets. Bonus anectode: I went to HR and asked "Are you legally required to keep things I tell you confidential? For example, if I tell you I want to leave then will you tell my boss?" Her answer to my second question was no, but guess what my boss and I talked about the next day!

gregd 12y ago
So basically that book could consist of one page. "You're screwed"
- kelukelugames 12y ago
  Heh. It's not that bad. 1) Very few of us suffer from the legal definition of discrimination. (Being mistaken for the secretary sucks but it's not illegal.) The book gives us realistic options. 2) Most of the time we just deal with an unfavorable boss or upper management. The book gives more actionable options there.
chaostheory 12y ago

Iftheshoefits 12y ago

This just can't be emphasized enough. My view is that this view should be expanded to include most of management. They are in a different social class, because they are employees the company values more than the employees who do the work of the company (e.g. produce products, maintain software, whatever). HR is valued more for all the reasons listed. Management serve a similar purpose, but in a more front-line kind of way, and also are guardians of the only resource that matters in a company (direct and indirect expenses). I suppose it makes me a cynical person but my view is that unless I have a pre-existing personal relationship, I assume that anybody in management views their employees as tools to use for their own political ambitions within the company, whether they need a scapegoat to cover their own incompetence or a proxy to claim glory and credit for jobs well done.

kvargs 12y ago

You're totally right. I thought HR was at minimum a neutral party - at Amazon your HR rep is called your "HR Business Partner". That's complete baloney. She was basically there to do whatever my manager and the VP wanted her to do. Things I told her in confidence (like having two transfer opportunities) were immediately relayed to my manager. It is such a betrayal of trust. I would hope that other HR departments in other companies are different but I think that's overly optimistic.

Tyrannosaurs 12y ago

HR is there to protect the company from all staff - yes you but also your manager and his/her ignorance of employment law. Maybe it's just a European thing but I've seen more HR professionals despair at the actions of managers than staff. Yes, they may help him/her get rid of you but what they're really terrified of is his ill advised actions which open the company up to a massive liability.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> Maybe it's just a European thing but I've seen more HR professionals despair at the actions of managers than staff. Its a power-balance thing. Managers have more power vis-a-vis HR staff than line staff do, thus are more likely to be able to get away with persisting in things that HR staff doesn't like. So, more likely a source of HR staff "despair". Employees -- unless backed by a manager -- are more likely to meekly acquiesce.
- masklinn 12y ago
  I think what Tyrannosaurs meant is that, because of stronger employee protection, a rash manager in europe can very easily open the company to huge liabilities. One of the primary HR jobs (if not the primary one) is to avoid the company being liable. The prospect of facing a labor board and finding the company be 100% at fault is likely to make them despair.
  - Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
    Yep. My personal view from my interactions with HR (as a manager looking at redundancy, poor performance, sickness) is that they're best viewed as the Employment Law team.
  - pgeorgi 12y ago
    On the other hand, when speaking about US/EU differences, I don't think many EU countries have laws to grant enormous $$$ in punitive damages. Germany certainly hasn't - when you win, you typically get your legal fees and damages (as in: what the court decided you _actually_ lost). So there isn't _that_ much of a liability - the main concern for companies is probably that they'll have to stop mistreating their other employees, too. OTOH, there's a separate branch of jurisdiction especially for employment related issues which is generally employee friendly and for the employee a lawsuit is free and doesn't require legal representation on the lowest level.

snowwrestler 12y ago

This is all true. But what I haven't seen in this thread is advice on what employees should do, instead of going to HR. My experience is that it can be invaluable to make personal connections with one or more management-type folks outside of your team. This is sometimes called a "mentor," although I think that term is pretty cliche at this point, and puts too much pressure on the relationship. The point is to have someone a bit more versed in the internal politics, with whom you can have informal conversations before doing anything dramatic--like going to HR or emailing your boss's boss's boss. They can help you predict the likely outcomes of those actions. And they might also be able to end-run around the "bad layer" in your management. For example, they might be able to go to another senior person and informally pass along the word that a key issue is not being addressed...without naming names. How to build those relationships? Take people out to lunch or coffee. Have a conversation. Ask them how they got to where they are, what they wish they'd known earlier, etc. Often you can figure out pretty quickly whether you get along with them or not.

lifeisstillgood 12y ago
So true. And the essence of networking

shin_lao 12y ago

I can't upvote you enough. Nothing cynical but remember the HR is paid by the company, not by you.

cc438 12y ago

I'm surprised that HR was immediately on the manager's side. I'd expect HR to protect/defend management that is above their work group, they write the checks after all. However, there is no incentive to protect anyone on the same level or below their reporting manager. HR exists to defend against litigation and conspiring with Kivin's manager worked directly against that purpose. Their actions resulted in a fat public lawsuit where winning won't matter. The findings related to the ethics of Amazon's ad platform are damning, their corporate customers would love to recoup misappropriated advertising dollars with their army of attorneys on retainer.

hga 12y ago
It's long standing Amazon policy to engage in "fat public lawsuits" over employment. So while we might argue the wisdom of that, HR not worrying about that prospect is in alignment with the higher levels of management.

aridiculous 12y ago

How's this for an idea: by law, many/all HR duties in corporations larger than X, must be conducted by independent, outside firms hired by the original corporation. They would be like tax auditor firms or credit card security auditors, but more involved. This way, HR would more likely be incentivized to work for both employee and employer (because they are audited themselves), except in extreme corrupt cases. HR practice would also become a lot better, as it became more competitive and profitable. People with more knowledge of labor law and history would thrive. Yes, there would still be stooges working in these outside HR firms, but at least they would stooge for the real laws in place rather than corporate policies.

mahyarm 12y ago
People who know who their real customers are, serve their customers. I don't know how effective it would be in the end. Also the cases you cite, they're go-between firms where the power relationship is obvious. Big government tells smaller corp to do x, or big credit card firm tells smaller firm to do y. For employee's, the power relationship isn't there unless you have unions, and union organizations would be ones you would go to in these cases.

incision 12y ago

>"HR is not your friend. HR is not there to protect you and your career." Right. Being a friend, advocate and protector is the role of a professional union. Unfortunately, the labor in tech seems convinced that each is better off on his or her own despite being up against a cartel of behemoths [1]. 1: http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/ http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-...

doomspork 12y ago

> Looks like Kivin was surprised when HR told his manager that he requested to be transferred. His manager then used this information against him, by putting him into a 'performance improvement program' which blocks transfers to any other group for some period of time. I learned this one the hard way myself. The change wasn't motivated by any grief or frustration, I was simply looking for career growth since my role wasn't offering me any new opportunities. Instead of what I thought would happen, my boss identifying I could offer the company more in that new role, he was offended I'd ask to change teams and retaliated. I ultimately left the organization soon after because he had made it an absolute nightmare. > HR is not your friend. HR is not there to protect you and your career. HR is there to protect the company AGAINST you. This was very shocking to me to realize early on in my career, I'd always heard that HR was on my team. I quickly learned that they're just there to keep the assembly line happy and functioning.

ufmace 12y ago
As in many things in life, the people and organizations that are actually on your team are perfectly obvious, and they never feel the need to tell anybody how on your team they are. The only people who feel the need to tell you how on your team they are would be the ones that are not on your team at all, and expect to get some kind of benefit for the people whose team they are actually on by convincing you otherwise. I.E. by screwing you over.

reshambabble 12y ago

I learned this lesson the hard way. I worked for a company that had a huge culture problem. I made the mistake of telling the truth to HR about it, and suddenly I started going from beyond excellent performance reviews to strangely poor performance reviews about my "personality" without any explanation (and even resistance when I tried to ask about it). They were slowly documenting enough negative evidence to let me go. Unfortunately New York is an "at-will" state, so I could never file a wrongful termination suit. The power is one-sided.

deleted 12y ago

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pasbesoin 12y ago

Seen this repeatedly in multiple corporate settings. The sooner you learn it, the better you may fare. (Including sometimes making decisions to "get out", preemptively.) Once you understand it, it can also help explain some of the staffing and personalities you will encounter in HR departments. P.S. I'll add that, in my experience, this extends to most performance reviews. Their primary function is to reenforce top-down policy and decisions. They are not really, primarily, about assessing you and planning (real) improvements. They are about laying the paperwork for whatever Management decides. Perhaps this sounds overly cynical. And for favored employees, these processes may align more with their own interests. Even then, favored one year may not extend to the next year.