HR Truths

Those of you who have followed and read this blog know that I work in Human Resources and have more than past 20+ years.  During my time in HR, I have dabbled in virtually every area of HR - recruitment and talent acquisition, benefits, compensation, employee relations and labor relations.  During this time, I have noticed some truths that I think anyone who has worked in HR for any length of time can relate to.

1. There are people who put forth more effort avoiding work than they would expend if they just did their job.  Some of them come up elaborate reasons for missing work, be it fake illnesses to be off work "sick" or feigning relationships to the recently deceased in order to get bereavement leave.  (Yes, I've actually seen that one.  Caught the guy, too!)  Others have no problem coming to work, but then spend much of their time "at work" doing things other than work.  Honestly, some of these folks expend more effort and brain power trying to NOT do work than they ever would if they just came in and did their jobs.

2. There is an inverse relationship between how strenuously an employee insists that he/she is "a good employee who just wants to come to work and do my job" and how much of a headache that employee actually is.  I cannot count the number of times I've heard the "I'm a good employee.  You know that.  I just want to come to work and do my job" speech from an employee who is nothing but a pain in the butt who often falls into category 1 above.  If not in that category, they are the employees who seem to thrive on conflict and drama.  Very seldom do I ever get that speech from the good employees who never miss work, always do their job and never cause any issues.  The more often an employee says it, the worse of an employee he/she probably is.  To paraphrase Shakespeare, "Thou doth protest too much."

3. A career in HR means dealing with more abbreviations than you see in almost any other career. DOL, OFCCP, NLRB, FMLA, ADA, EEOC, FLSA, DOT. HR is a veritable cornucopia of abbreviations.  And those are just the common, nationwide, government agency abbreviations.  You have to then throw on top of those things like STD, LTD, SPD and PIP, as well as the many company-specific abbreviations that nearly every company has.  Alphabet soup indeed!

4. The best part of working in HR is the "H". It's the people you get to work with, partner with and help through the various issues that arise every day.  It's finding that future gem of an employee and hiring them.  It can be helping to develop said gem to reach their full potential.  It's helping someone dealing with a personal crisis and doing what you can to help them pull through that crisis. It can be extremely rewarding.

5. The worst part of working in HR is the "H". It's the aforementioned problem children (see items 1 & 2 above). The people who don't come to work.  The people who don't play well with others.  The people who can't follow the rules.  The bad drivers, bad actors, bad supervisors, bad employees.  There is an HR saying that 20% of employees take up 80% of your time and it's definitely true.  A given supervisor certainly has to deal with their respective problem children, while HR gets involved with ALL of the supervisors' problem children.  It can be extremely exhausting.

There you have it - 5 truths to which anyone who has worked in Human Resources can relate.  A career in HR is many things, but boring is certainly not one of them.

Thanks for reading!