Why Employees Love to Hate HR ??

Owh Yes!! You hate them. You hate them even if they are polite, even if they think in favour of your organisation, even if they are the ones who brought you onboard and even if they would be the ones to help you score a raise. You'll anyways find reasons to hate them.

I came across so many employees in the walk of life complaining mostly about their Human Resource staff or department. Employees hate HR people for a variety of reasons - some of them are logical reasons based on bad experiences with HR people, while other reasons about their hatred demonstrate the employees' lack of knowledge about the actual role of HR department and its members in the workplace.

While these reasons exist in mostly every organization, regardless of the reason in your specific organization, it’s difficult to win employees' loyalty and trust back when they've formed a bad opinion about HR department and its people. 

The reasons offered below about why employees love to hate HR come from the observations of several employees in various organisations and also HR employees and their practices.

• Incompetent HR employees

HR people often know the HR practices that they are there for, but do they really know anything about the business they work for? Well, sometimes not !!

A common complaint encountered is that generally the HR staff came from accounting or another unrelated organisations and don’t know if they’re doing right with the employees in the new organisation.

This really leads to hollow implementations of policies and screwed work scenerios. HR employees actually need to well versed not just with their subject but also the organisation. They need to understand the real know hows and mindsets of employees of that business specifically.

• Dishonest HR employees

This one is the favourite reason to hate HR employees for - Dishonesty.

It is believed that they rarely tell the truth about how they managed and handled an employee situation. They would misrepresent the employee’s story to management to make their deeds seem right in the situation. It is believed by many employees that HR people lie to cover up their mishandling of a situation.

• HR only cares about companies and management's interests

HR surely care only about the interests of the company and the managers. It is believed that in case of any dispute, HR will side with the manager the majority of the time. HR sides with the company, even if you got proofs and witnesses.

That's what they are paid for. To think for the company's interests and bring you to respect those interests as well. Additionally, in their quest to keep the company safe from lawsuits, HR covers up legitimate employee concerns. But what's legitimate and who decides that is always a question still.

• Trouble hired by HR

HR managers focus on keeping payroll costs down and keeping "employee issues" to a minimum, instead of setting ambitious goals and then hiring brilliant people to help achieve them -- and letting those brilliant people do their jobs!

This oftenly enrage other employees because at last they are the ones to face and deal with those troubled incompetent hires just because HR department wanted to keep payroll costs low.

• Unfair HRs

HR seems to play blame game even for tiny infractions with all employees.

HR staff members are usually believed to be unfair and partial. Often it is believed that their desire to get praise and promotions because of great employee management, keep them from acknowledging the legitimate employee point of view.

They are also prone to support managers over employees regardless of the evidence in the situation. Alas, it is them together to discuss about your next big raise and nothing big can be done about it.

• HR's immense involvement in office politics

HR people are not viewed as trustworthy at all. Even though they say, "Tell me what's on your mind.", your mind would immediately answer, "Owh yes!! Why not!! Looking for new topics to make it the next big gossip of the company ??"

HR people are viewed by many employees as seeking to fall in line with executive leadership. They are often accused of making dealing with employees political based on the employee’s job title and position.

It is often belived that HR employees ingratiate themselves more with managers and executives because they add no value to the bottom line employees.

The above listed points can play a consequential role in how competent and trustworthy employees in your organization view the HR department, which is the glue which binds the employees to organisations. The executives must do everything possible to avoid creating them in the first place to retain the best of employees.

Unfortunately, bad HR departments are well alive out there. But, there are also great HR departments and staff members. Also, HR people have reasons to find employees annoying too. And, sometimes more than annoying. A change might need to occur from both ends.

If you ever had bad experiences with HR department or employees in your organisation, you can take a step, too. You don't really have to wait for the next "confidential and anonymous" employee survey to throw your views and shade on the HR department. You can interact with HR people even when you don't really have a problem. They too got a human side which can be honoured, just by sharing your genuine concerns with them.

It's a human tendency to divide the world into two groups: Us and Them. And it's easy to make HR people the 'them' - the enemy. Remember that hostility and fear are two sides of the same coin which takes a side based on deeds. HR people just try doing their best for the organisation mostly. Let us reach the inner human side of HR people and try changing 'Them' to 'Us'. The real difference in your opinion for them would follow. And well who knows, you might woo your HR to help you get a raise or long vacation after that.