5 Secrets You Should Know About HR

Source US News Money
If you are already working, what is the human resources department to you?

Is it just a department meant to organize people or report relationships?

Here are five important things that you should know about the HR department.

1. HR isn’t there to be your advocate.
The HR department’s function is to serve the needs of the business; its loyalty and responsibilities are to the company. Now, in some cases, that means support employees against bad managers, because it’s in the best interests of employers to retain great employees, identify and address bad management and stop legal problems before they get out of hand. But plenty of other times, what’s best for the employer will not be what’s best for the employee, and the best interests of the employer will always win out. That’s not criticism; that’s simply what HR’s mission is.

2. HR isn’t obligated to keep what you tell them confidential, even if you request their discretion.
HR staffers aren’t doctors or priests, and you shouldn’t assume confidentiality when talking to them. If HR officer hears information that they judge needs to be shared or used to address a problem, their job obligates them to do that. In fact, in many cases they would be being professionally negligent – or in some cases, even breaking the law – if they didn’t act.

Now, that doesn’t mean that you can never talk to HR in confidence. But you should clearly work out the terms earlier – and should stay aware HR is still required to report certain things, like harassment or illegal behavior, even if they agreed to confidentiality before hearing your report.

3. HR knows things that they aren’t telling you.
Whether it’s the changes to major benefits approaching, or why some departments get significantly more resources than yours, or who in the organization is essentially untouchable, or who is on their way out, the HR department learns things in the course of their work that they’re not allowed to relay to you.

If a HR officer who you normally know to be responsive is stonewalling you or seems resistant to explaining something, it’s possible that they’re simply not allowed to share something confidential. (That said, if you’re regularly not getting what you need from HR, consider pushing back or talking to a different officer.)

4. HR’s job is to support the company’s managers, not to dictate how they operate.
Some companies give HR more power than they should – such as letting them control how other departments hire or make promotion decisions.

5. Your HR department might be great, or it might be awful.
Some HR departments are in line with the company’s culture and goals and do excellent work – ensuring, for example, that managers are well-trained, benefits are strong and well-administered, salaries are benchmarked to industry and market norms and increased when needed, and that they help rather than hinder a company’s managers.

Others, though, focus more on holding office parties and then get in the way when managers need to hire, give feedback and handle sticky personnel issues. A good HR department can help a company get more done. A bad HR department will just get in the way.

But there’s a huge amount of variation in human resources, so don’t assume that what was true at a company you worked at previously will be true at your next.

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