We just wrapped the painful process of annual appraisals and already HR is harassing me for 2008 goals. Elaborate excel files arrive on email accompanied by reams of rules and regulations as HR attempts to pigeonhole my performance for later review.
All this attention on assessment has me wondering: who holds HR accountable? Over the course of my long corporate climb, I’ve noticed one trend you can bank your bonus on: every year HR is more powerful and less productive …
Of course to really evaluate the HR team, first you’d have to find actual humans to resource. Gone are the days of easily accessible low-level employee relations advisors. Now that HQ has become a PC paradise, the HR crowd only hangs behind closed doors in the executive suite.
Embracing “transparency” has provided the perfect excuse for the department to dial down the effort yet another notch. Training sessions, benefits brochures, and user-friendly forms have given way to “Supervisor Self Service,” as HR has gone DIY on the WWW.
Now managers are forced to plod through a labyrinth of proprietary sites, passwords, and PDF documents for the pleasure of serving as their own HR consultants.
Just the other day, I was trying to push through a promotion and asked my friendly HR contact for advice on salary ranges. In response, he shot me a multi-mega PowerPoint file jammed with sliding scales, exceptions, exemptions, and itty-bitty charts. The body of the email said simply: consult the matrix. Hello, Neo, where are my leather pants? Is it just me or is somebody seriously slacking?
Even when you do deal with HR in person, most of the time it’s like they are speaking a different language. There is never a straight answer with this crowd—only convoluted circles of theoreticals and hypotheticals. Mix this with a tendency to talk in buzzy techno-speak and stir in an alphabet of acronyms and you’re as dazed and confused as the rest of us.
I actually read the following in a report recently issued by our Alpha HR (asterisks added by yours truly, just in case you don’t have on your decoder ring): “Our department will be reaching out to the EP*, messaging around the roll-out of the MFP**. Socializing concepts around the tool should assure compliance with the CAD***.”
*Employee Population
**Managed Feedback Process
***Corporate Assurance Dossier
Speaking in tongues. With a straight face. And no one dares declare the emperor has no clothes …
Why? Oh, don’t be fooled by those sweet smiles and sensible shoes; HR might speak about soft skills, but if you ever find yourself out of bounds, they can really play rough.
The best advice my first boss ever gave me was to watch out for HR. “They will never really help you,” she whispered, “but they sure can hurt you.” It’s true, my friends: HR isn’t there to protect the working class from The Man; HR is The Man.
After all, these processes, policies, and precedents are in place to keep you in your place. And it doesn’t matter if you live in a cube or a corner, HR is ultimately pulling the levers behind all the smoke and mirrors.
Ever noticed that the same group who creates orgies of org charts never actually appears on one? It’s because HR seems to answer only to itself.
Which brings me back to my original question: who holds HR accountable?
At the risk of having to update my resume, I’m gonna go ahead and say that I’d rate the whole lot with a NI for Needs Improvement. What about you?
Remember, if you don’t have anything nice to say, my door is always open …
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