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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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  • One of the things I am struggling with is the disconnect of what I am learning I should be to my company through my CIPD Level 5 studies, and what my company want me to be for them.

    They are a small company and the Directors want full control. Ethical decision making? Absolutely not. Do they want my input? No, they don't want to be called out. So for example, they ignore their own handbook where it suits, they promote people who's faces fit and to hell with the repercussions. They try to exit people often from the business if they don't fit the culture. They will not hire anyone older because it is a 'young business'.

    I don't really believe there's a strategy for me to hang a HR strategy on if I'm being completely honest.

    I'm not asked to be involved with talent planning because there is very little planning in any area and promotions are usually based on who the MD has promised them to.

    Recruitment swings from no vacancies to about 18 over night depending on whether the business wins business but then often panics about the costs of those hires because there's no forecasting or budgeting ahead.

    I'm lost. I don't know whether to leave or if it's like this everywhere...but it makes me miserable. I have no control. I don't see me ever being able to be involved with things I'm taught I should be. I just clear up a lot of mess.
  • in reply to Stacey
    Stacey, my situation is exactly that of yours - and we too don't seem to have the foggiest idea about a business strategy (seemingly nobody in our entire industry does), the unpredictability of a hiring strategy that never succeeds, the alignment of my HR generalist (solo) role in my SME not aligning to our CIPD industry expectation or aspiration. I've spent the last 5 years mopping up after bad leadership decisions, against my professional advice (gleaned from every resource from my CIPD studies/CIPD website, ACAS, AIHR, etc). Every year they ask me why our attrition is high and yet as soon as our business struggles with profit, the DEI, the performance management, the psychological safe space, are thrown out of the window in preference of Command & Control. I feel passionately for my choice to work in HR but I constantly see/hear so many fellow HR professionals who just do not get any joy or value out of their role.
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  • in reply to Stacey
    Stacey, my situation is exactly that of yours - and we too don't seem to have the foggiest idea about a business strategy (seemingly nobody in our entire industry does), the unpredictability of a hiring strategy that never succeeds, the alignment of my HR generalist (solo) role in my SME not aligning to our CIPD industry expectation or aspiration. I've spent the last 5 years mopping up after bad leadership decisions, against my professional advice (gleaned from every resource from my CIPD studies/CIPD website, ACAS, AIHR, etc). Every year they ask me why our attrition is high and yet as soon as our business struggles with profit, the DEI, the performance management, the psychological safe space, are thrown out of the window in preference of Command & Control. I feel passionately for my choice to work in HR but I constantly see/hear so many fellow HR professionals who just do not get any joy or value out of their role.
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