No they are not it's the difference between advice and an instruction

It depends on what you mean by liable? Clearly if you have given good advice and stressed the very serious consequences of not following it then in most organisations you couldn't fairly be held to be liable. On the other hand you could be expected to escalate that advice to a more senior level of management if the risks warranted it. Its a risk assessment

It sounds like your organisation has a serious issue and this is a poor attempt to fix things. The target should not be teh HR adviser but line maangers. If the organiation wants to mandate managers to follow your advice then that must come down the management chain not you saying you really must do this

Hi Jen

In these circumstances line managers can’t actually be instructed to follow advice, but will usually be aware that if they don’t the adviser will bring that fact to the attention of the line managers line managers in particular and senior management generally.

Managers manage / Advisers advise but if managers choose not to follow advisers’ advice then they can and should usually be held responsible for their actions and any consequences of them.

Of course if an adviser advises against something because it’s unlawful or jeopardising health and safety and their advice is ignored and it happens then the adviser can invoke ‘whistleblowing’ laws and procedures.

I think the bottom line is that the managers aren't obliged to do anything, but you should continue to do as you are doing and highlight the risks and possible consequences. Who is it that is challenging you to enforce the advice? Your HR manager, or the CEO etc?
I think that a lot of it comes down to company culture also. I have worked in places where the HR Director was seen as actually running the business as much as the owner, and literally everyone did what she said. Then I have worked in others where the HR Director has been more removed, and this resulted in less authority for the HR Managers and HR Advisors etc. So I think this authority to enforce advice to the managers also has an element of coming from the top of HR. What is the HR Director like? Do they have a lot of authority too? If so, this will be easier for you, in my experience.

I think ultimately, you can't make anyone do anything, but in trying to enforce advice, are the people telling you to do this willing to back you? So what happens to the managers if they refuse to follow advice?

Thank you for your comments, yes I tend to escalate to higher management if I am aware the manager is not taking my advise, unfortunately, sometimes I don't know they haven't taken the advice until after they have decided not to follow this and then I am having to deal with the consequences of their actions. This as all come about due to me saying to my HR manager 'I can't force managers to take my advice I can only advise' when it became apparent that a manager didn't want to follow it. In practice we do escalate this type of thing if we know or suspect the advice wont be followed which thankfully is not often, I was just reprimanded for saying what I said which felt a bit unfair. Hey ho... thank you though for you insightful comments.

In reply to Jen:

Hi Jen, thanks for posting your question. I must admit you are not the first HR colleague to raise this dilemma around advising and being listened to. I clearly remember eons ago during my CIPD studies a classmate who was an HR advisor telling me about yet another conversation with a manager who was clearly not going to follow her advice, it was really demoralising for her and after all, when asking someone for their advice surely it is to follow their advice rather than ignore it??!? What may be required here in your case is some more support from your line manager. Is it worth documenting somewhere each time you have a conversation with a colleague along with a brief summary and perhaps include these with any one to one meetings you have with your HR manager? I do get your point about being unable to force anyone to adopt your good advice, we can lead the horse to water but cannot make it drink the water. Can anything be done to help you feel more supported?

One way I'd get round this to make sure your advice also has the support of more senior managers. But you must be practical and your advice must support the work and the aims of the managers you refer to. So if a manager wishes to get rid of some troublesome employee, then don't let them fall into potential employment law traps where you then have to step in and tell them what they cannot do. Your advice should be to help them in their aim. But you may have to get involved early on, rather than at the last minute.

Get the senior managers on board. Once they are behind you then you'll have the stature in the eyes of the line-managers that they trust you and know that you have the support of their own managers. Again this means sometimes standing your ground if you have to, but it also means working out ways of helping them, rather than hindering them in their actions.

The difference between in authority and an authority but if they dont and you disagree (despite all efforts) carefully document their decision that this is against your advice