Human resources are hated by employees for a wide variety of reasons. Some of these reasons are actually valid while others exist because of a lack of knowledge about the role of HR in the workplace. Irrespective of the reasoning, it is incredibly difficult to win back the loyalty of a disgruntled employee after they’ve had a bad experience. While there are both good and bad sides to the HR department, below are five of the more common reasons why employees hate HR.
The stereotypes that HR employees are incompetent
When a grievous worker takes their issue of concern to an untrained, uneducated HR employee with zero to little experience about working in a professional work culture, bad opinions are automatically formulated about the profession of HR as a whole. One of the main reasons for this complaint is that HR staff originally comes from unrelated roles such as accounting and administration; and so they usually have no idea what they’re doing.
Dishonest HR employees
Many employees complain that HR staff members are very dishonest. In cases of an altercation, they don’t always reveal the truth about how they handled an employee situation. They forge tales to an employees’ story in order to misrepresent both to the management and in court (should the need arise). Employees typically believe that HR staff is predisposed to solving the problems of the company and not the disgruntled workers.
HR is unfair
Petty office politics could be the norm of the day and might decide which employee gets the upper hand in a messy situation. The need to keep their jobs, earn higher salaries and get the next big bump prevents employees from raising their voice against the status quo. This obviously serves to create an environment of mistrust between HR staff and employees.
Office politics
Whether it is a large, small or even a multinational workplace, they all seem to suffer from ‘office politics’ in one form or another. It is the job of HR to keep office politics out of the work culture and foster an environment of mutual trust between employees from all the hierarchies. But the common view of HR members is how they try to win over the favor of executive leadership, instead of bringing harmony between the ‘powers that be’ and those below the organizational structure.
Getting otherwise innocent employees in trouble
It is human nature to frequently run into altercations, and HR staff is commonly believed to serve the sole purpose of getting employees in trouble for small infractions. These brief moments of disputes could arise from something as small as asking for time-off, to asking for a boost in the pay grade. It could even stem from the hiring of a new recruit. All these problems have unique solutions which aren’t necessarily a one-size-fits-all approach. They require HR people to think innovatively and make both parties feel at ease.
