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Is your HR job making you miserable?

Steve Bridger

Last month we were discussing What key challenges are you currently facing in your role? 

One of you mentioned "the impossibility of balancing different priorities, when you have a genuine desire to do the right thing by the people you work with. I've always chosen to work in a relatively small organisation, so I'm close to the people whose jobs I support. For the first time, I'm thinking that I'd like a bit of distance!" (Which, incidentally, reminds me of this thread from the archive...)
Should HR have employees as Facebook 'Friends'?

Another community member said, "...with so much change in the business, it's so difficult to keep everyone feeling safe and secure, informed to the right level."

I know that so many of you find this Community a comfortable space to share your highs and lows with your peers, but it's almost two years to the day that I asked How are you all doing? after the worst of the pandemic.

We have been talking about this NYT article at CIPD this week... which has prompted me to ask that question again: how are you all doing?

So, Human Resources Is Making You Miserable?

HR managers... say that since the pandemic, the job has become an exasperating ordeal. “People hate us,” one said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/03/business/human-resources-professionals-workplace.html

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  • First, I don't think it's necessarily constructive to compare our experiences at work with those of our US colleagues. Although, we should also acknowledge that being HR, even in the UK, in a business that actively despises its employees and goes out of its way to deprive them even of their legal minimum rights is soul-crushing (but, generally, doesn't attract people affiliated with the CIPD).

    But fundamentally, the things that make it miserable to work in HR are exactly the same things that make it miserable to work in *any* department. Under-resourced, under-appreciated, poorly managed, untrained staff that are placed under excessive pressure to meet unreasonable objectives are going to be miserable *everywhere*. I haven't read the NYT article because I avoid giving anyone my data that doesn't actively need it, but I probably have a good idea of what it says from US-based friends.

    Ineffective or inexpert managers use HR as a scapegoat for their own crappy decisions so people hate HR. See my (many) previous posts about how the failure to invest in effective management training and development in favour of a nebulous fetish for "leadership" has led us to a situation in which managers lack confidence in their decision-making ability and therefore blame someone else whenever they have to do something unpopular.
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  • First, I don't think it's necessarily constructive to compare our experiences at work with those of our US colleagues. Although, we should also acknowledge that being HR, even in the UK, in a business that actively despises its employees and goes out of its way to deprive them even of their legal minimum rights is soul-crushing (but, generally, doesn't attract people affiliated with the CIPD).

    But fundamentally, the things that make it miserable to work in HR are exactly the same things that make it miserable to work in *any* department. Under-resourced, under-appreciated, poorly managed, untrained staff that are placed under excessive pressure to meet unreasonable objectives are going to be miserable *everywhere*. I haven't read the NYT article because I avoid giving anyone my data that doesn't actively need it, but I probably have a good idea of what it says from US-based friends.

    Ineffective or inexpert managers use HR as a scapegoat for their own crappy decisions so people hate HR. See my (many) previous posts about how the failure to invest in effective management training and development in favour of a nebulous fetish for "leadership" has led us to a situation in which managers lack confidence in their decision-making ability and therefore blame someone else whenever they have to do something unpopular.
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