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Breaking news: Companies do not respect HR as a function

Posted on by Ted Bauer

I got this press release a few days ago. Before I give you the main visual from it, let me set it up a bit for you. This is from the crew at Blind, an anonymous workplace community:

In our most recent survey, we asked our users point-blank, “Do you trust HR at your current company?” The survey ran from July 30 through August 6 and a total of 11,892 users responded. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of people replied that they do not trust HR. Here’s what we found out:

  • 70.3% (8,357 users) answered responded with ‘No.’
  • 25.7% (3,059 users) answered ‘Yes.’
  • 4% (478 users) answered ‘My company does not have HR.’

We also broke down the results by companies with at least 100 survey responses from employees. Here’s what we found:

  • Intel ranks the highest for the number of employees who distrust HR with 83.18% answering ‘No.’
  • Intel (83.18%), Amazon (79.86%), eBay (75.59%), Oracle (74.66%), Airbnb (74.29%), are the top 5 companies with distrust towards HR higher than the overall survey average.
  • LinkedIn finished with the lowest, with 59.55%.

Here’s that visual:

Now you might wonder: well, why is this the case? Why would people not like HR?

Here are a few potential answers:

  • This list is tech companies, which pride themselves on “moving fast” and “being disruptive.” HR is often very plodding and kind of the antithesis of tech.
  • It’s not revenue-facing.
  • It’s somehow the same division that polices you / can fire you but also is supposedly responsible for engagement.
  • We’ve allowed this lie to perpetuate for many years that “HR protects the employee,” when everyone knows HR protects the org/the top dogs and that’s it.
  • It’s usually not innovative and very compliance-driven, which is necessary — although I think a lot of execs don’t fully understand the difference between legal and HR aside from “HR hires people, right?”
  • Marketing can spend literal months on some “employer branding” campaign — admittedly it’s largely horseshit — and HR can ruin all that goodwill and campaign asset work by having a few bad 30-minute calls with top-tier candidates.
  • Executives don’t care about it.
  • It’s called “human resources,” and yet paradoxically it’s the least human-ish department in most companies.

That’s a partial list. My friend Terra and I made a video about this whole concept too, if you want to check that out. I tried to embed it, but that failed, so here be the link.

What else would you add on HR as a function?

Ted Bauer

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4 Comments

  1. Jim Collins correctly taught us that you need to get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus,and the right people in the right seats. Ideally that is the primary, if not sole, role of HR. If they are functioning correctly, then they are hiring for character first and skills a distant 5th. More commonly they want to hire the all star at minimum wage. Thus the candidate lies, HR lies,and then everyone goes to work unhappy. Until honesty reins in the hiring process, on both sides, and the importance of character is finally identified as the true discriminating factor in any hire, we will perpetuate this unhealthy situation. And by the way, referring to your employees merely as “resources” is probably the most pejorative thing to ever call a living, feeling, thinking human being. Let’s stop that lie as well.

    • The resources thing — the sheer wording — is massively true.

  2. As you mentioned, in the vein of legal compliance, they are there solely for litigation deterrence and management. Essentially, it’s made up of non-lawyers doing lawyer’s work. The people who work in HR everyday are unqualified for their own jobs. Companies need to acknowledge that HR has outlived it’s usefulness and replace it with an on site legal department.

    • Many people, outside of Corp HQ dwellers, dislike HR because HR is detached. They don’t pay the bills and they call a lot of shots. In the restaurant business, operations works long hours day and night. They pay the bills and the salaries of corporate goods and services.

      Some HR leaders are smart, tuned into the business and can relate to the folks on the firing line. Others are 9 to 5ers, weekends off and pretty unapproachable. They are like referees that you never see, you can’t even talk to them, they’re too busy. They’re pushing out memos that affect you, your schedule, pay, vacation and your family.

      They could never be a participant in the culture. That’s a shame. It should not have to be that way.

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