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Should HR be allowed an opinion...!?

Emma

Hi All,

As a bit of background, I've been working in HR for over 10 years.  My current role is stand alone, with responsibility for c.50 employee in UK.  This my first "manager" position, also my first time working with Americans - We have an American parent company.  My manager, and all of the C level are American and based in USA.

I'm really struggling with this role (been here 2 years) as I feel like I'm constantly battling the US senior team on UK employment laws.  To be fair my boss is great, and he gets it - but I feel like the rest of the US team don't take me seriously.  I have a good relationships with the UK managers - but ultimately they are not allowed to make their own decisions.  Also, feedback I have had recently via my boss is that the US c level believe I'm too much "team employee" rather than "team company".

UK managers aren't allowed to make their own decisions, we often have performance and disciplinary processes enforced on us by the US.  I do try to outline the risks of certain actions objectively on a case by case basis, but ultimately I if I'm honest disagree with 70% of the decisions.  Am I supposed to just keep quiet, or should I be challenging more?

I enjoy my role here - and don't want to quit (I would feel like I've surrendered!).  I guess what I'm looking for in this post is an answer to the question - am I just being naïve and is HR solely supposed to be team company - no questions asked...…….?

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  • Your US C suite is correct that HR is "Team Company". The challenge lies in educating the C Suite that there is a difference between being "Team Company" and being "Team Rolls Over And Does Whatever We're Told". And it's not easy. You've been in place two years, which is a good length of time to have had that opportunity, so there's a risk that you've been pushing on a door marked "pull".

    How I have learned to manage this, through bitter experience, is to try to be as hypere-efficient as possible when it comes to doing things that fit well with good practice and sound business sense. That way, when you do push back and go "Um..." they know that it's not because you want to be deliberately obstructive.

    And when you do push back, you have to do it in a language they understand: money.

    I had to persuade my Board to authorize a pay-off to an employee last year. They bitterly resented it, because they felt the company had done nothing wrong. I had to frame it in terms of risk: that the risk of facing a legal challenge was high and that our odds of winning the argument were very low, and that the potential costs were therefore ten times what we were proposing as a settlement agreement.

    It was through gritted teeth that I extracted an agreement from them, but as the consequences - better record keeping, more proactive management of problem employees, and a structured approach to performance appraisal - rolled out from this incident, they gradually came to terms with the fact that I'd made the right call and I gained credibility as a consequence.

    That said, I still get emails along the lines of "All HR ever does is cost us money, I don't know why we bothered employing you". It's not the highlight of my day.

    Quitting in the face of that isn't surrender. And two years is a perfectly respectable length of time to have on a CV.
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  • Your US C suite is correct that HR is "Team Company". The challenge lies in educating the C Suite that there is a difference between being "Team Company" and being "Team Rolls Over And Does Whatever We're Told". And it's not easy. You've been in place two years, which is a good length of time to have had that opportunity, so there's a risk that you've been pushing on a door marked "pull".

    How I have learned to manage this, through bitter experience, is to try to be as hypere-efficient as possible when it comes to doing things that fit well with good practice and sound business sense. That way, when you do push back and go "Um..." they know that it's not because you want to be deliberately obstructive.

    And when you do push back, you have to do it in a language they understand: money.

    I had to persuade my Board to authorize a pay-off to an employee last year. They bitterly resented it, because they felt the company had done nothing wrong. I had to frame it in terms of risk: that the risk of facing a legal challenge was high and that our odds of winning the argument were very low, and that the potential costs were therefore ten times what we were proposing as a settlement agreement.

    It was through gritted teeth that I extracted an agreement from them, but as the consequences - better record keeping, more proactive management of problem employees, and a structured approach to performance appraisal - rolled out from this incident, they gradually came to terms with the fact that I'd made the right call and I gained credibility as a consequence.

    That said, I still get emails along the lines of "All HR ever does is cost us money, I don't know why we bothered employing you". It's not the highlight of my day.

    Quitting in the face of that isn't surrender. And two years is a perfectly respectable length of time to have on a CV.
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