HR departments

   / HR departments #1  

cp1969

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With apologies up front to those who will undoubtedly be offended, I offer this observation:

HR departments are worse than utterly worthless--they are a cancer on a business.

I made a cameo appearance at our weekly staff meeting today, my first in about two months.

During this meeting, our manager explained to us a new employee rating tool, given to them by our hard-working geniuses in HR. It is a box divided into nine sections. Along the Y axis is 'Performance', with positive movement associated with increasingly better employee performance. Along the X axis (but at the top of the box, instead of the bottom where all graph axis that I've ever seen are located) is 'Behavior', with movement in the negative direction indicating more desirable employee behavior. So, the upper left box is the spot to describe superior employees.

So far, so good. I can deal with this.

Then it is revealed that our resident HR geniuses did not invent this masterpiece; they stole it from GE. Fine--So far, I don't care what these benign cube-dwellers do in their waking moments.

Then it is laid on us that it is decreed that the distribution along the Performance axis shall be 20% superior employess, 70% average, and 10% substandard. The 10% will be put on report, and if improvement is not detected within a year--out the door. Courtesy of The Company That Cares.

The boss tells us that they have spent considerable time complying with this edict, placing everyone in the organization into their proper place in The Box, and notes (with some apparent glee) that "eighty percent of you will be unhappy with your ranking."

At that point I asked, "Did you bother to rank your people BEFORE someone who works at GE TOLD you how they would be distributed, and see how your numbers compared to a TOTAL STRANGER'S assessment of YOUR people?" Of course, the answer was no.

Sorry, but I've had it. Up til now, I considered HR to be something similar to an ugly mole on a concealed body part--Worthless, but more trouble to get rid of that it's worth.

Now I consider them the workplace equivalent of melanoma.

I haven't worked it out yet, but I think, using this formula, it may be nearly impossible for a young person to make it to retirement using this 10% per year reduction, assuming the quality of new hires is the same or better than the existing workforce.

edit: had to take out some stuff, for fear it might get printed out and laid on boss's desk.
 
   / HR departments #2  
LOL /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

We at work like to think of them as "barely Human and hardly Resourceful" /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
 
   / HR departments #3  
<font color=blue>They stole it from GE</font color=blue>

Don't you mean, benchmarked?
 
   / HR departments #4  
Charles,
Remember when it was called pesonnel, and to all of our employees it was openly known as anti-personnel, then it changed to human resourses and now every one calls them inhuman resourses, Because no matter what you do they always seam to try and put the whammy to you. They do salary surveys every 3 years and the only people that Really seems to come out ahead is our upper management/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif When you do an employee evaluation no matter how good they really are they want the employee right down the middle and its an openly known fact. At one meeting they said ( personnel) you people probably think all we do is sit up here and think of ways to mess with the employee, and one of the employees stands up and goes we didnt say that but you just did. Meeting over. Im not saying all managment is bad, I also know of some good managers and there turnover rate is almost none. You just got to try to find a medium but that is easier said than done. Well enough venting.
___________________________________________
Take care, Jim
 
   / HR departments #5  
That 10% sounds like the system that Ford implemented and made so many employees angry. That system pits employees against each other (trying to make sure they don't get into the 10%) instead of drawing them together as a team against the real competition. Ford ended up with a bunch of employees suing them. Since Nasser was tossed out, Chairman Ford is working to resolve the problem to get the company working together again.

HR should treat their biggest expenditure as an investment, not a necessary evil.
 
   / HR departments #6  
Where I work they try this about 11 years ago.. the same ranking system,but found out it cost them three times as much,and couldn't really understand why the trades were so unhappy.
Someone at the top went to the wood shed and they drop the whole idea,but trust and respect thur thoses 4 1/2 years cause alot of damage between workers and mangerment.
If you take care of your good workers they will take care of you..company. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
 
   / HR departments #7  
I've seen these systems work, but only when all levels of management are involved in improving the performance of each employee. Ranking systems, by themselves, only offend people and can destroy a company. Good management knows this. These systems came into favor to combat legal challanges to layoffs without cause. They are also an attempt by HR to level the playing field between different competing departments (and managers) within a company during the revue process. Hope it works out for you.
 
   / HR departments #8  
/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gifOK, Charles, so what's the solution?/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

I've been there; on both ends, both working in the field and being in charge of the "Personnel Division" (as it was called in those days)./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif All the "experts" in management assure us that you need a formal rating system, and we went through many different versions and types of ratings. At one time I accumulated ratings forms and information from just about every source that could be found. And I ain't found one yet that was worth the paper it was printed on./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif And do you really think it's the fault of the HR department and the employees there? Who do you think they get their marching orders from?/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

The word "scapegoat" comes to mind./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
 
   / HR departments #10  
The ratings game.....

When the performance process began a couple of months back, management was told to "honestly" rate their people. OK, fair enough... They were also told not to rate their people as high as last year. What?? /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif It's seems as though HR/management thought that too many people are performing as expected and doing their job well. What?? /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

My manager did all of his reviews and submitted them for upper management review. The director told him to change all the reviews except one. My manager said - Sorry Charlie, can't do that... This is how my people performed and I'm sticking too it!! You want to make the changes, go right ahead. And, OBTW, make sure you put your name on the form as the one making the changes - not me!!

One of my coworkers made the statement. "Well, I guess if I had a higher rating and was supposed to get a 10% raise, I would get the higher portion of the 0% merit increases this year." /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif That statement said it all....

Terry
 
 
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