[schwarrrtz]

It's also a complete HR catastrophe. How could anyone feel comfortable in their position, knowing they could be fired at any moment, publicly and without warning? Terrorizing your employees is completely unacceptable as a manager.

Edit: I guess I don't have much experience with HR at large companies - I use the term to refer to aspects of management related to maintaining employee wellbeing, workplace culture etc.

[throwanem]

HR doesn't care about that! Not unless it's actionable. Good way to lose your star contributors, sure, but past a certain basic point retention isn't really part of HR's role.

[beobab]

"Retention isn't part of HR's role"

Really? I've always seen HR as a sort of "union for un-unionised employees". They help you get stuff out of the business, and help the business get the most out of you.

Perhaps I've only encountered the good kind of HR.

[KineticLensman]

A significant aspect of HR (at least in the UK) is protecting the company from its 'resources', and ensuring that the company has a robust (i.e. legally defensible) paper trail when disputes arise. E.g a process for putting people on an 'improvement plan' in response to poor behaviours / performance, and which can ultimately lead to dismissal.

Back in the day, the term 'anti-personnel department' was often used.

And don't get me started on the use of the term 'human resources'

[Edit] - more detail. I'm a techie but have occasionally had line management (in addition to tech lead) responsibilities. The first time I took on these duties, I had to do the relevant HR training and was amazed at the attitude: a little bit of 'duty-of-care' and a lot of 'follow-this-process-to-make-sure-the-law-is-on-our-side'

[arethuza]

My experiences of UK large company HR departments was basically that they were the hit squad - if they were in the building then you knew someone was in major trouble.

I had an interesting experience a couple of years back when everyone in our office was called to a surprise meeting with HR except me.... I had already resigned, everyone else got the bullet in that caring way that HR departments are famous for.

[tlavoie]

A company I worked at did something similar; those who were being kept were told to go somewhere else, not to go to that meeting. Those that were still around were herded into the classroom, to be met by the HR head and a hired goon of a security guard. The entire office was being closed, but the way it was done was more hurtful to those folks than the basic business decision.

[hd4]

Can confirm as a programmer in UK. I hit this wall recently when asking for extended leave to deal with a personal crisis. The colluded response from HR/the business was to give me notice.

[moomin]

Take it from someone whose partner works in HR: they are not your friend. They may be nice people, they may try to help, but their _job_ is to protect the company's interests. Each time you talk to them about conflict, you're taking a bet your interests and theirs align.

In other news, for a bunch of smart people, engineers are spectacularly underunionized.

[Angostura]

They are however, definitely interested in retention. They have a keen understanding of the total cost of finding and onboarding a new employee. If a particular executive is putting that in jeopardy then a good HR department will take note.

[toyg]

> They have a keen understanding of the total cost of finding and onboarding a new employee.

Because they will be involved in recruiting, they will also have a keen understanding of how much that increases their workload, which is otherwise pretty flimsy in a lot of cases. The more churn, the more they can justify their headcount.

[moomin]

They definitely are, but in a circumstance like this the most _urgent_ problem they've got is a bunch of ex-employees with a legal action brewing. Implicitly admitting liability without a quid-pro-quo isn't going to happen.

Which isn't to say HR won't want him gone. Just not yet.

[izacus]

Well yes, but companys interest in this case is not to have a PR fail at their hands.

[toyg]

> They help you get stuff out of the business

Nope; they help the business get the most out of you without getting sued. That's the alpha and omega of HR.

Their obligations are to the company, not to you. When they answer your questions, they do it so you can't claim later on that the company didn't tell you such and such or that the procedure XYZ was unclear, and sue them. They are nice so that you won't see the company as adversarial and sue them. And so on and so forth.

[marvin]

At some places, they have one branch of "good cop" HR that cuddles the employees, hands out candy and attempt to boost morale, and one "bad cop" branch that does all the dirty work of protecting the company from liability and attempting to squeeze out as many hours as possible while keeping compensation and human costs to a minimum.

[snarfy]

They aren't your friends. They protect the company first. Definitely think twice before going to HR for anything not related to the normal benefits/vacation type issues. If you have an issue with another employee, you may very well be the problem that gets eliminated, not the other employee.

[defined]

Many people, myself included, feel that HR is almost totally on the side of the company and don't represent employee interests effectively (if at all).