In corporate America, the ever-expanding function of ‘looking after the employees’ has become a Trojan horse for the progressive, liberal, politically correct movement supported by personal injury lawyers. The HR function is a tumor inside your company that subsumes your authority over your employees.
Remember: The Human Resource department is neither human nor resourceful.
It can’t be; the diktats they craft are drawn from the latest rulings from an anonymous government bureaucrat. They are written in turgid legalese that no one reads, pinned to the bulletin board in the firm’s lunch room hanging limply next to the map showing the fire exits. Ignore them at your peril.
An exceptional employee needs an exception to keep her in the firm; you’ll find only you can grant it, and then only under the disapproving look on your HR manager’ face as he stands by your desk to watch you sign the exception. It will go in his file–marked CEO.
The latest craze in ‘flexible working hours’ is an example how the HR function has morphed into a management role. Presented with their proposal that ‘On Mondays and Fridays, any employee not required by function to be at their desk, may work from home,’ you decide as a modern and hip CEO, to go ahead and try it.
Wait a week, and if more than 25% of your work force has logged in on the company network instead of walking the dog or picking the kids up from school, you should be proud of their work ethic.
After a month of declining results, you decide to scrap the ‘work from home’ policy. Your HR manager-now relishing a for sure morale problem — proposes the classic HR remedy– a company off -site play day. Attendance is mandatory. In the indoor rock wall climbing exercise, you feel( and look) like a jerk hanging by your hands scrambling for a foothold while some scared to death operations clerk is holding onto the line attached to your safety harness. You realize this is not togetherness, just as he does.
Children do not belong in the workplace. This virus appears every few years. ‘Bring your children to the office work day so they can see how mommy and daddy work.’ You don’t run a day-care center. Besides all the children do is spread germs as they play with the equipment. You want a happy economic family, the happy social family will then take care of itself.
Keep the HR function penned in under the CFO. Remember, it use to be called the payroll department.
mos-leaders.com 