The fact that there is a very thin line between the human resource department and the others in a multi-layered organization, is a known fact. A line that is delicate and sensitive for most part, this aptly sums up the simmering relationship the HR personnel share with the rest of the employees. And this is no recent phenomenon. Since time immemorial, they have always shared a love-hate relationship.
Here, some of the possible complaints include the alleged bossy attitude of the HR, towards the other employees. This is the case in every organization, irrespective of the working equation of the departments.
A report in the Harvard Business Review explains how employees have been having different perceptions of the human resource personnel, depending on the circumstance.
Taking the case of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the report says, “Think back to the Great Depression. People would put up with nearly anything to stay employed. Line managers complained that personnel departments were getting in the way of better performance, which they thought could be achieved with the drive system: threatening workers and sometimes even hitting them if they failed to measure up”.
This is precisely the scenario. Employees’ good or ill feeling towards the HR, largely depends on the situation they are in. If they need to stick to the job, come what may, then any policy or attitude of others, would not be sickening.
On the other hand, if they have a ready offer in hand, or are keen to put papers at the drop of the hat, then a small provocation is enough to irritate the workers.
This was again repeated in the 2008 recession period.
Quoting the Harvard Business Review again, “business leaders didn’t put a lot of stock in HR in this period, because employees—keenly aware of how replaceable they were—stayed put and more or less behaved themselves. Because companies had a large pool of job seekers to draw from, wages stayed flat and productivity rose. More employees were working harder for the sake of security”.
Moving on, another common mistake most of these resource personnel do, is pushing the tasks they are originally supposed to do, onto the next level of managers and executives.
Now, this might seem like a way to promote knowledge training and skills among employees, but in most cases, the idea will only backfire as these employees, more popularly known as line managers, will see this interference as unwarranted.
So how do these self-assuming human resource teams manage to create an impression for themselves and ensure a smooth organisational workflow?
First, they need to set the agenda.
Most of the bad blood occurs in a workplace because employees allege that the HR focuses on tasks that are seemingly worthless for others. This misunderstanding can be prevented if the HR were to clearly define the work they do, and the reasons behind the same.
Second, they should also make sure they are fully involved in key worker-related decisions of the company.
Some of these include layoffs, recruitment, approving and delegating work from home options, appraisal, performance-based perks and the like.
As HBR say, “Supervisors need the training, the time, and the incentives to have serious conversations with subordinates about performance and growth”.
Another key task is to acquire adequate business and technical knowledge. It is never too late to start learning, especially when one is in-charge of the coordination between various departments.
This is to say that the human resource personnel should have sound knowledge of all that goes around in the workplace and the various issues that affect or are likely to affect the employees in the coming days.
