Transactions and Empathy

Author's Note: As 2023 draws to an end, I wanted to take time to reflect on a year that has seen job loss, job hunting, contract work, re-employment, and other challenges in my professional life. Here are some of the lessons I have learned from my navigation. I hope they provide some insight to my LinkedIn community.

In several of my jobs my group reported directly into Human Resources. One of the things that my HR co-workers would say is that they want to be seen more than just transaction processing. They have the capability to make a real impact upon employee performance if they were given the chance. While I don't doubt that to be the case, HR also needs to rise to the challenge. When the opportunity comes along for HR to demonstrate that impact, it needs to embrace the opportunity.

In January of this year, after nearly eight years of service, a meeting was placed on my calendar with my manager and HR. If there was any consolation, I knew I was not alone. Many people that day were seeing those meetings on their calendars. In a meeting that lasted 15 minutes, I was told by the HR representative, who held a fairly high level within the department, that I was being laid off. She continued with what my severance would look like, any outsourcing benefits I was entitled to, how to send back my equipment, and an invitation to contact her if I had any questions. She then left the meeting.

What wasn't in that meeting? Any trace of empathy, sympathy, understanding, compassion, or caring. It was simply a transaction to her. I'm pretty sure that after she logged off, she put a check on a physical or mental list and went on to the next layoff conversation, repeating the performance.

This didn't surprise me, as I had seen this type of behavior from her and other HR representatives at the company previously. I asked questions and they were ignored until I investigated myself. I then received a rude comment from the HR representative saying I had no right to make an inquiry of anyone else but her.

I went to HR to talk about how to juggle my increasing workload and how to parlay that into a higher-level job. I was given a formulaic answer about just expanding my existing job, ignoring the fact that the job was already being expanded, and I was beginning to drown.

There were other incidents which showed that an HR representative was happier with providing the transactional solution instead of providing real value to the employee.

This is not a blanket condemnation of Human Resources. I know many in the field who strive to provide excellence and go the extra mile on a regular basis. I also recognize that on the day I found out I was no longer going to work for that company, the HR representative probably had multiple similar conversations. I still cannot help but believe that if that representative wanted to make a real impact upon employees, even one who was about to be a former employee, she could have mustered up some words of condolence and empathy, understanding that each person she spoke with just had a major part of his or her life dissolve before his or her eyes. The last thing each employee needed was an automaton on the other end of the video conference screen.

If you want more than just being considered a transaction processor, you need to prove that you can affect employee performance and morale when the opportunity presents itself. You must demonstrate that you can do that job and not just say you can do that job. A good HR representative would say just that to an employee.

That's how HR can earn its promotion.