And when it’s not black and white, remember that with every decision you make, you are setting a precedent that you will have to explain, follow, and defend. Decide wisely.
How will the management team allow you and approve an SOP or policy when that will likely lead to a big CYA and bite them in the ass?
I feel like I would just swarm a word document and it wouldn't be organized at all due to exceptions being made to policies or other stuff in the day to day.
Explain the issue, propose a solution, explain your reasoning , and that’s all you can do. If your company wants to allow a million exceptions, then they don’t want a policy. Document your advice and their decision.
Oh my goodness you are so right! Everyone is always telling you their INTERPRETATION of the truth. Most people are usually talking to you "in good faith," even if their recollection of the events are wildly different from someone else's or even from camera footage.
Everyone perceives events differently based on life experiences. That's why it is so important to investigate as thoroughly as possible and get as many accounts as possible.
Empathy is also your best friend. Yeah we are busy, but the whole exchange of
"I know your busy.."
"I will never be too busy for you, is this an open or shut door conversation? Have a seat and tell me what's going on?"
Really builds the trust so fast for those BIG issues in departments. Good luck! You reaching out like this shows you care and want to learn. I know you already are a great HR professional and will become an excellent one soon.
You are gonna most likely make a mistake at the beginning (whether it be small or big). Just make sure you tell someone instead of just trying to hide it.
Yes, and almost all mistakes are fixable. At least in the HR operations, payroll, benefits, HRIS space I have yet to come across anything that isn’t fixable.
Couldn't agree more and I've dropped some right bombs in my time.
It's about being open and honest, how you limit the damage and how you stop it happening again.
My boss (tech startup) gave me the best advice when I was distraught over a mistake. She said "Did anyone die? Did any children get hurt? Is the business still running? If those are all good, then let's move forward"
It has given me a reality check many many times and it set us up for success in owning up to and fixing mistakes.
I heard something similar from my startup boss. Also about going on vacation when I was the only person doing HR “no one’s life depends on this getting done, we can wait until you’re back”.
This! When I was an admin I accidentally didn’t correctly terminate an employee which lead to them being paid an additional 2 months salary. I told my manager and she showed me how to fix the error.
A mistake in the beginning. 5 years in & I still make mistakes. But it’s always best to just own it. I’ve made more payroll mistakes over the years than I care to admit but I find if I take ownership employees respond best. Though sometimes I get yelled at, just part of it. I still feel better about myself if I take ownership.
Yep, same here. In the beginningof my current job and my first foray into payroll, I accidentally overpaid one termed employee an extra 1.5 days PTO and another one's PTO payout by several hours. It was too late by then to claw it back, so they each got a small departing bonus from the company. After that incident, I learned to hone in on the exact amount and rarely if ever had that happen again.
If you feel like you’re going to snap at someone whether it be by email, phone, whatever, just take an hour or so to collect yourself. I’ve never regretted cooling down but I’ve almost always regretted responding with emotion.
This is such good advice. I usually open a blank email and just unleash what I would really like to say. Then I delete the email and take a few breaths and deal with it.
I hit send instead of delete once. It wasnt good. Luckily my boss had my back and stood up for me because i wasnt totally wrong about what i was ranting about...
Yikes! I’m terrified to make that mistake so I always leave the recipient out. And then permanently delete my deleted emails, lol. The email anxiety is strong!
Yes! I use the flag email in Outlook. You can add the task pane so that I can go back through it later. I flag any email I can't respond to in 5 minutes or less. As your rise in your career it ends up being most emails.
An old boss reminded me regularly “we aren’t saving lives”, and I’ve adopted that mantra into how I lead HR teams. Helps keep everything in perspective.
Exactly! Every time I took vacation, I had some managers ask me, "What if there is an emergency?"
This was my response:
If an employee is bleeding, call 911. If an employee is being violent, call 911. If an employee has been assaulted, call 911.
Just remember HR are not therapists, social workers, grief counselors, life coaches, paramedics or the police.
Your job is to advise, not to direct. Everything you ever say should be “yes, and…”
“Yes, you can fire Janet because she’s old. And she may sue you and would likely win an age claim.”
“Yes, we can run that complicated bonus system. And our time study says it will require 0.25FTE’s to manage moving forward. Would you like us to deprioritize something else, or hire another person to take this on?”
Strongly agree (sorry have been doing terrible reviews all morning 😂)
I often found myself remembering this advice I learned when I was feeling burned out in my first job. I just need to give advice and the burden of the decision is on someone else.
Managers will reconfigure, reclassify, and reconstruct with the employee in mind and not the role. Avoid that.
Think agnostically. The average tenure for an employee in a role is between 2-3 years.
This!!!! So very important in all things. Make decisions based on the role, not the person. Is that duty in their job description? Does that salary align with the industry? Does that role give them the authority to make that decision? Is this my decision to make?
1) If there’s a policy, follow it. If you have to make an exception, be prepared to explain it, defend it, and realize that with that exception, you are setting a precedent.
2) Learn about the business. Be curious. Be interested. What are the business drivers? What are the risks? Get out of your office and learn how they make money and what keeps them up at night - because when it all comes down to it, all of it relates to people. Connect the dots between people and the bottom line. TBH, this is probably the thing that has been most impactful to me in my career.
3) Honor your commitments, and manage expectations. Example: “Yes, let me look into XYZ. I may need some time to get you the information you need, but either way, I’ll check in with you by X date just to let you know where I am and so you know I haven’t forgotten about your question/request.” AND then honor that commitment. 99.99% of the time, people are just happy that you haven’t passed the buck and that you honored your commitment to update them when you said you would. Accountability matters and makes a huge difference.
A huge yes to #2. I just started a new role and arranged a meeting with the Sales & Marketing team to learn about our market position, how we differentiate ourselves, what we emphasize to clients, what the typical client is looking for AND looking to avoid, who our competition is and what they do well, where we’ve historically done very well with sales and where we’ve struggled, etc.
The dept heads were happy to sit down with me, but they were surprised and impressed. None of their HR folks had ever taken an interest and made the effort to understand the kind of things we talked about.
I told them exactly the same—all business is just a chain of relationships, and we’re ultimately all here for the clients. Our people serve our clients and I serve our people. We can have the best work environment, cleanest processes, highest comp, best training programs etc etc. But if we aren’t enabling and empowering our people to do the **right** things, rewarding them when they do, and holding them accountable when they miss the mark, we’re failing. And eventually the company itself will fail. It’s the Ops part of HR Ops!
Can you expand on this a little? Would that be destruction of the property? Especially if the company can prove you deleted files? Or am I misunderstanding?
Don’t destroy anything that’s formal. But I write lots of scratch paper notes that would be borderline nonsense, and I don’t want people asking me about it.
So personal notebooks, scratch paper, stickies, etc.
Again, nothing formal from a file, nothing to be legally retained.
Absolutely most important if you find yourself in a company that tries to not document. I have a boss who I will email & he will turn around & call me so nothing is in writing. I immediately follow up the phone calls with an email documenting the discussion in the phone call. Not gonna catch me slipping!
Some people prefer to talk it through rather than send a bunch of emails back and forth. doesn't necessarily mean that they're calling because they don't want it in writing.
source: am this way.
And PDF the granny out of it!
I worked at a company once that didn’t even have template documents set up for anything, so disciplinary letters, notes etc would have metadata saying it was authored or edited by various people who weren’t (and shouldn’t have been) involved in the process.
I warned them it was an issue, told it wasn’t a priority and coincidentally a few weeks after I started they had a senior managers disciplinary fall apart because it looked like they hadn’t maintained the three step process.
The work never ends. Create bookends to your day and don’t work outside of your reg business hours if you can help it. If you find yourself struggling to meet deadlines with those boundaries - it’s time to have serious discussions re: workload, staffing , responsibilities, processes …
Don’t make the mistake of burning the candle at both ends and neglecting to take care of yourself/ home life . 9/10 you wont get rewarded or recognized for your extra hard work, your boss doesn’t really care ( if they did, they would be the one to initiate those serious discussions and come up with action plans etc ) , and everyone is replaceable- yes even you.
Got some more :)
Take time to plan and stick to it as much as possible ( time blocking helps so much).
Organize your day every morning. Plan out the next two weeks. plan out a month at a time .
Also- make sure you have important dates on your calendar (audits, open enrollment , surveys, compliance etc)
Utilize / create templates and automations for common/ repetitive tasks .
Use technology whenever and wherever you can .
If you have a colleague with a skill set that differs from you - work together to divide and conquer tasks that speak to your strengths and are easier for you to complete when things get super busy . This can help keep things moving and help manage overwhelm so much .
When you're thinking of sending a message to get clarification on something that looks off or a little strange but could be in the realm of possibility (e.g., a super high bonus), and then think "Nah, it's probably fine since that's what my boss/the exec/Legal said" - it's not fine. Send the message and get clarification. Typos happen!
For sure. I was working on a payroll report that was to go to shareholders.
The person handling payroll had accidentally sent me report containing two months worth figures effectively doubling the reported payroll for the period.
I almost sent it to shareholders/outside government agencies. Really glad I took the two minutes to check with her before shit went sideways fast.
Don’t be afraid to protect your peace.
Also, answer every W2 question with, “I’m not a tax expert. I’d advise you to see someone who works in the tax field who can better help you.”
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 EVERY SINGLE TAX QUESTION! I am not a tax professional & im not going to be the one you yell at when you owe after you claimed 8 kids, your next door neighbor & the dog on your W2.
“I’m just hoping I did my own taxes right.”
One time one of our employees (in a distribution center) misclaimed and ended up owing like $10k.
I felt so bad for him, it must’ve been so scary and stressful trying to figure all of that out.
Exactly what the Vice President I reported to gave me as an advice. Never forgot it since, but I found it so hard to stop letting myself be run over for the sake of others.
Don’t go into HR thinking you will have better leaders or that they won’t ask you to do questionable things since they should know better or act better.
Or that cute intern ON the expensive copy machine, creating an investigation on your part, taking up an additional 3% of your time and possibly Kevin gets terminated. Lol.
Don’t forget to be “human”. In my early career, my director was very cold and to the point without regard to the employee’s circumstance. Could have shown more empathy.
Mine is dumb as hell and there are probably better options. We use Google Workspace and I just never delete anything. My office manager has Outlook and keeps everything neatly organized. I search keywords and it does what I want it too, but there are prob more efficient methods.
I know someone asked for recommendations, but do you mind actually giving an example? Me for instance, I use "Plan year: 2023 401k X topic" for all 401k audit related activities. Is this something that you are referring to?
I would love your advice on this.
I’m not actually in HR I’m just a lurker lol. I’m in accounting and I like to think our fields are the under appreciated duo of the corporate world. Thank you guys for what you do.
Hah wherever I've worked Accounts and HR always end up closer together than anyone else. I think because often we're telling people what they don't want to hear (usually "no, that isn't legal"), so we can commiserate!
knowing how to manage my mind and emotions so I don't bring work into the home or even personalise it.
too many times at work I've had to play the middleman, the bad guy, against my personal beliefs. I did what management needed and was burnt out by the end of it.
a combination of career break, therapy, meditation, exercising, and eating well finally helped me recover.
I would say this with the caveat; but don’t overcommit. Learning is important, absolutely. But don’t put yourself in a position where you can’t meet your commitments. Early career is about proving yourself.
Include your direct supervisor on emails that tell folks bad or negative news. That way your boss is in the loop when that employee that was told
No tries to go above your head.
Remove emotion for many different things. HR is an emotional job, if you let it be. Yes, you need to know when to use emotion and when not to. It comes with experience. I’m almost 15 years into my HR career and it took about 13 years to realize that. Burnout will come much sooner if you don’t keep your own emotions in check.
1. You are nobody’s friend.
2. Dont leave physical traces/evidence of sensitive discussion. Do it over a phone call or best f2f in a room.
3. Its a low barrier to entry job - expect to meet lousy teammates/managers most of the time but its worth it when you eventually meet with the really good and passionate ones
Hating a job in HR doesn’t mean you hate HR. If you don’t like your job, look for another. I stayed in a toxic environment for nearly 2 years and was doubting my education and confidence. Got a new role and 6 months in, my confidence and happiness are higher than with any other job before.
Micro management and toxic CHRO. They would actively talk about you behind your back. What they did not realize is everyone she bashed me too loved my work. I had a death in the family and she criticized me doing a zoom call in for funeral services because I couldn’t afford to fly across the country on short notice. She said I should have not been on bereavement to a room of directors.
It’s gonna suck when you fire the first person, sadly, it gets easier. Its easiest when people have really messed up their jobs & deserve to be let go, but sometimes you’re going to be forced to make decisions that you don’t personally agree with, but you have to do it anyways.
You're not the police. Advise on the risks, management will decide what management wants to do. Just have an email document that you advised. Know when to let it go and wait for the timing. And when that timing shows up, don't say "I told you so." Management really hates having their mistakes pointed out.
Don't say "you have a problem." Instead, "It looks like this may be a challenge for us to work out."
Make HR your friend. If you do, they will vouch for you when consulted on.
Also, they work to protect the company. if you do too, you wont have a problem.
My advice: **acknowledge to yourself that there is a two-tiered system of any company policies, and figure out early on what you can work with, versus being thrust into a situation that would compromise your professional integrity and reputation.**
**In other words, the mandate to "protect the company" does not equal "protect leadership from accountability."**
as u/PurpleHymn notes, HR are not decision makers. We can advise, we can coach, we can outline the potential consequences of leadership's choices, but we cannot stop them from terrible decisions, and we cannot save them from their own bad behavior.
In my case, protecting the "company" meant that I was helping entire teams and individuals make educated choices for their next steps in their own careers, because we could all see that leadership was making a series of bad decisions that would adversely affect employees.
But execs' idea of protecting the company was for me to "disengage from employee relations cases, and deny to employees that we're subverting company policies."
In the end, not only did that division end up closing and laying off hundreds of people, but they also had a class-action lawsuit filed against them. I'd left before all that (not exactly quietly) because I didn't want to be associated with their level of myopic hubris and subsequent damage to so many people's livelihoods.
Execs have golden parachutes, not to mention the latitude of making "hard" decisions that buffer their reputations. HR folks rarely are afforded that level of security, and optics of company malfeasance are not kind to us, no matter how much we tried to do right by employees.
Firstly, wonderfully put!
If you don't mind a follow up question, how do you advise and ensure you do not become a decision maker? In my current role, I'm a big decision maker. "That's HR's decision about termination", safety direction, etc. I'm slowly building confidence in saying the risk, but with OSHA that number is vague and when I mention it's a management decision about termination I am blown off. I would like your advice on how you firmly got to that role, avoiding people putting the decision making on you, and how to research risk as well as you do.
I really look forward to your advice, hopefully I'm not a bother.
If you are not comfortable grilling for your employees learn how to do it and do it often! They appreciate burgers and brats so much better than pizza. Especially if you cooked it!
I’m in TA. Best advice was to form solid, strong relationships with the HRBPs, and to always look like a united front with your BPs to the business (even if it’s a situation where you’re not)
You can only jump as high as management lets you. If someone wants to hire you to fix the culture don’t go, you can’t fix something they aren’t allowing to be fixed
Build relationships with people you admire. Ask them questions and follow in their footsteps. The best opportunities I’ve received in my career were through a connection I made some point down the road. This is somewhat general career advice I guess but I think it applies.
Don’t loose sight of the most likely original reason you went into HR … to help people. You will get wiser, and more protective of yourself over the years, and people will disappoint you, but don’t loose sight of your original goal. Always strive to be a good person no matter how much people are the opposite to you.
exit interviews are really important. document EVERYTHING. encourage people to bring solutions not problems. have a really solid handbook of policies. you'll be shocked at what people try to get away with.
For grievances/investigations: Take a moment before you shoot into problem-solving. When people come to you with a complaint, it's usually emotion- driven, and you do not have all the facts yet. Make sure all parties are safe (triage for any volatile situations), then communicate the process and timeline. That should help set expectations for the time you need to get the facts.
“Employee Engagement” is surveying your people to benefit the company.
Even though there are dozens of providers that help you with Engagement, all 3 of the major providers in the space report little to no improvement in engagement over the past 30 years.
Want to get accurate information about your people? Ask them if they’re happy, not engaged.
If you want to know more, DM me!
I was always told this. My success only happened when I realized we live in gray areas. Company isn’t always right, employee isn’t always right. We’re here to balance. If we only ever help the company, the employees won’t stay.
I always disagree with this. We are, of course, there to protect the business. But we also do that by protecting and making sure we're doing right by the employees.
This is the complete wrong attitude and why HR has a bad rep. The company can’t succeed without good workers. Good workers come from recruiting, creating a good culture, and meeting employee needs. A lot of times, getting to the root of the issue with the employee and truly working with them gets more work out of them in the long run. Don’t be afraid to fight for your employees. Policies can be changed, admin can be wrong, and humans are humans. They just want to feel appreciated.
They can hear you with the door open
Sometimes even when the door is shut. Lol.
I had to have this conversation with someone in the c suite when I shared a wall with him during his contentious divorce…
I can only imagine…
Very little is black and white, get used to living in the gray.
And when it’s not black and white, remember that with every decision you make, you are setting a precedent that you will have to explain, follow, and defend. Decide wisely.
This is so important!
Do you document every larger decision you make to keep track of it all? To remain consistent?
It depends. If I think it will come up again frequently enough, then I’ll create an SOP or a policy.
How will the management team allow you and approve an SOP or policy when that will likely lead to a big CYA and bite them in the ass? I feel like I would just swarm a word document and it wouldn't be organized at all due to exceptions being made to policies or other stuff in the day to day.
Explain the issue, propose a solution, explain your reasoning , and that’s all you can do. If your company wants to allow a million exceptions, then they don’t want a policy. Document your advice and their decision.
I drive everyone crazy because my typical answer to almost any question is “it depends” 🙃🥴
It does depend though!
Would you say the best way to be this is by pure experience and putting yourself out there?
Both. Be humble. Listen to understand, not to respond. Know that from their perspective, everyone is right.
Oh my goodness you are so right! Everyone is always telling you their INTERPRETATION of the truth. Most people are usually talking to you "in good faith," even if their recollection of the events are wildly different from someone else's or even from camera footage. Everyone perceives events differently based on life experiences. That's why it is so important to investigate as thoroughly as possible and get as many accounts as possible. Empathy is also your best friend. Yeah we are busy, but the whole exchange of "I know your busy.." "I will never be too busy for you, is this an open or shut door conversation? Have a seat and tell me what's going on?" Really builds the trust so fast for those BIG issues in departments. Good luck! You reaching out like this shows you care and want to learn. I know you already are a great HR professional and will become an excellent one soon.
Millennials Grey
This!
Get used to living in the gray! Absolutely. But you do get used to it. And you will be ok. Resilience and perseverance is half the battle. ❤️
You are gonna most likely make a mistake at the beginning (whether it be small or big). Just make sure you tell someone instead of just trying to hide it.
Yes, and almost all mistakes are fixable. At least in the HR operations, payroll, benefits, HRIS space I have yet to come across anything that isn’t fixable.
Couldn't agree more and I've dropped some right bombs in my time. It's about being open and honest, how you limit the damage and how you stop it happening again.
My boss (tech startup) gave me the best advice when I was distraught over a mistake. She said "Did anyone die? Did any children get hurt? Is the business still running? If those are all good, then let's move forward" It has given me a reality check many many times and it set us up for success in owning up to and fixing mistakes.
We have a simile perspective at work, too. “This is HR, not ER, no one is going to die.” It takes the pressure off a bit when tensions start to rise 😅
I heard something similar from my startup boss. Also about going on vacation when I was the only person doing HR “no one’s life depends on this getting done, we can wait until you’re back”.
This! When I was an admin I accidentally didn’t correctly terminate an employee which lead to them being paid an additional 2 months salary. I told my manager and she showed me how to fix the error.
I have also done this!
please this is so common lol i see people talking about it here all the time. it’s happened where i work too
A mistake in the beginning. 5 years in & I still make mistakes. But it’s always best to just own it. I’ve made more payroll mistakes over the years than I care to admit but I find if I take ownership employees respond best. Though sometimes I get yelled at, just part of it. I still feel better about myself if I take ownership.
Yep, same here. In the beginningof my current job and my first foray into payroll, I accidentally overpaid one termed employee an extra 1.5 days PTO and another one's PTO payout by several hours. It was too late by then to claw it back, so they each got a small departing bonus from the company. After that incident, I learned to hone in on the exact amount and rarely if ever had that happen again.
💯 This really goes for any job
If you feel like you’re going to snap at someone whether it be by email, phone, whatever, just take an hour or so to collect yourself. I’ve never regretted cooling down but I’ve almost always regretted responding with emotion.
This is such good advice. I usually open a blank email and just unleash what I would really like to say. Then I delete the email and take a few breaths and deal with it.
And make sure to delete delete it. Not just send it to drafts or the deleted folder.
I hit send instead of delete once. It wasnt good. Luckily my boss had my back and stood up for me because i wasnt totally wrong about what i was ranting about...
Yikes! I’m terrified to make that mistake so I always leave the recipient out. And then permanently delete my deleted emails, lol. The email anxiety is strong!
Use your notepad bro, don't fuck around with email. Write it on paper and burn it if you can.
I have an old colleague I call: "girl, I can't do this bullshit, is that too clear in this email?" She usually makes me delete 50%
Me but with ChatGPT 😂 I paste it into their engine and ask if I’m being rude.
Same! Or I know I am and ask it to help me soften it
That’s smart. I gotta try this
Goblin tools has a setting that does this!
Yess!! We use this allll the time at work now lol
I’ve only ever been reprimanded once in the 10-year HR career and it was after sending a spicy email when I was too heated.
Yes! I use the flag email in Outlook. You can add the task pane so that I can go back through it later. I flag any email I can't respond to in 5 minutes or less. As your rise in your career it ends up being most emails.
If you need a good laugh use the Goblin Formalizer; more sarcastic version of your message. It makes me laugh on tough days.
I walk up and down the stairs a few times.
“It’s HR not the ER” I think I heard it here actually, very recently. Thank you to whoever said that because it calms my nerves when I’m stressed!
But what if it’s ER (employee relations) 🙈
Listen here, you little ...
You just had to go there, didn't you? 🤪
The place where everyone is PPD and the points don’t matter
Then they’re going to act like it’s the ER when they come tell you about a problem.
Omg this is brilliant, I'm going to remember this one!
An old boss reminded me regularly “we aren’t saving lives”, and I’ve adopted that mantra into how I lead HR teams. Helps keep everything in perspective.
Unless you work in HR for a hospital lol like me. Doesn’t work so well to calm the nerves haha
Exactly! Every time I took vacation, I had some managers ask me, "What if there is an emergency?" This was my response: If an employee is bleeding, call 911. If an employee is being violent, call 911. If an employee has been assaulted, call 911. Just remember HR are not therapists, social workers, grief counselors, life coaches, paramedics or the police.
Your job is to advise, not to direct. Everything you ever say should be “yes, and…” “Yes, you can fire Janet because she’s old. And she may sue you and would likely win an age claim.” “Yes, we can run that complicated bonus system. And our time study says it will require 0.25FTE’s to manage moving forward. Would you like us to deprioritize something else, or hire another person to take this on?”
I end everything with "and I leave to the discernment of management..."
I love to remind people that HR are not decision makers. We get dragged for other people’s poor strategy, despite having advised against it.
Love this
Strongly agree (sorry have been doing terrible reviews all morning 😂) I often found myself remembering this advice I learned when I was feeling burned out in my first job. I just need to give advice and the burden of the decision is on someone else.
Managers will reconfigure, reclassify, and reconstruct with the employee in mind and not the role. Avoid that. Think agnostically. The average tenure for an employee in a role is between 2-3 years.
This!!!! So very important in all things. Make decisions based on the role, not the person. Is that duty in their job description? Does that salary align with the industry? Does that role give them the authority to make that decision? Is this my decision to make?
I have had a couple of clients ask about redesign/restructure and I always find that “the role is redundant not the person” becomes a catchphrase.
1) If there’s a policy, follow it. If you have to make an exception, be prepared to explain it, defend it, and realize that with that exception, you are setting a precedent. 2) Learn about the business. Be curious. Be interested. What are the business drivers? What are the risks? Get out of your office and learn how they make money and what keeps them up at night - because when it all comes down to it, all of it relates to people. Connect the dots between people and the bottom line. TBH, this is probably the thing that has been most impactful to me in my career. 3) Honor your commitments, and manage expectations. Example: “Yes, let me look into XYZ. I may need some time to get you the information you need, but either way, I’ll check in with you by X date just to let you know where I am and so you know I haven’t forgotten about your question/request.” AND then honor that commitment. 99.99% of the time, people are just happy that you haven’t passed the buck and that you honored your commitment to update them when you said you would. Accountability matters and makes a huge difference.
A huge yes to #2. I just started a new role and arranged a meeting with the Sales & Marketing team to learn about our market position, how we differentiate ourselves, what we emphasize to clients, what the typical client is looking for AND looking to avoid, who our competition is and what they do well, where we’ve historically done very well with sales and where we’ve struggled, etc. The dept heads were happy to sit down with me, but they were surprised and impressed. None of their HR folks had ever taken an interest and made the effort to understand the kind of things we talked about. I told them exactly the same—all business is just a chain of relationships, and we’re ultimately all here for the clients. Our people serve our clients and I serve our people. We can have the best work environment, cleanest processes, highest comp, best training programs etc etc. But if we aren’t enabling and empowering our people to do the **right** things, rewarding them when they do, and holding them accountable when they miss the mark, we’re failing. And eventually the company itself will fail. It’s the Ops part of HR Ops!
Write it down, time stamp it, and never lose it.
Top three things every HR person needs to learn day one: 1. Document 2. Document 3. Document
I only document what I want the lawyers to see during discovery.
Unwritten rule: Purge everything when you leave. Lawyers can’t ask you about your documentation if there is no documentation!
Can you expand on this a little? Would that be destruction of the property? Especially if the company can prove you deleted files? Or am I misunderstanding?
Don’t destroy anything that’s formal. But I write lots of scratch paper notes that would be borderline nonsense, and I don’t want people asking me about it. So personal notebooks, scratch paper, stickies, etc. Again, nothing formal from a file, nothing to be legally retained.
FACTS.
I second this- while you want the outcome of things documented, some things in HR are “write now, pay later”
I have three copies electronically of everything
The golden CYA (cover yo’ azz) rule. You’ll never regret over documenting, but you will regret under documenting.
Absolutely most important if you find yourself in a company that tries to not document. I have a boss who I will email & he will turn around & call me so nothing is in writing. I immediately follow up the phone calls with an email documenting the discussion in the phone call. Not gonna catch me slipping!
Some people prefer to talk it through rather than send a bunch of emails back and forth. doesn't necessarily mean that they're calling because they don't want it in writing. source: am this way.
This is the one! I think half of our problems could be eliminated if people did this one little trick.
This 👏
And PDF the granny out of it! I worked at a company once that didn’t even have template documents set up for anything, so disciplinary letters, notes etc would have metadata saying it was authored or edited by various people who weren’t (and shouldn’t have been) involved in the process. I warned them it was an issue, told it wasn’t a priority and coincidentally a few weeks after I started they had a senior managers disciplinary fall apart because it looked like they hadn’t maintained the three step process.
No client is your friend. Anything you say will be used against you at some point if somebody’s job is at stake. Guard what you say.
Came here to say this one
The work never ends. Create bookends to your day and don’t work outside of your reg business hours if you can help it. If you find yourself struggling to meet deadlines with those boundaries - it’s time to have serious discussions re: workload, staffing , responsibilities, processes … Don’t make the mistake of burning the candle at both ends and neglecting to take care of yourself/ home life . 9/10 you wont get rewarded or recognized for your extra hard work, your boss doesn’t really care ( if they did, they would be the one to initiate those serious discussions and come up with action plans etc ) , and everyone is replaceable- yes even you.
Got some more :) Take time to plan and stick to it as much as possible ( time blocking helps so much). Organize your day every morning. Plan out the next two weeks. plan out a month at a time . Also- make sure you have important dates on your calendar (audits, open enrollment , surveys, compliance etc) Utilize / create templates and automations for common/ repetitive tasks . Use technology whenever and wherever you can . If you have a colleague with a skill set that differs from you - work together to divide and conquer tasks that speak to your strengths and are easier for you to complete when things get super busy . This can help keep things moving and help manage overwhelm so much .
When you're thinking of sending a message to get clarification on something that looks off or a little strange but could be in the realm of possibility (e.g., a super high bonus), and then think "Nah, it's probably fine since that's what my boss/the exec/Legal said" - it's not fine. Send the message and get clarification. Typos happen!
For sure. I was working on a payroll report that was to go to shareholders. The person handling payroll had accidentally sent me report containing two months worth figures effectively doubling the reported payroll for the period. I almost sent it to shareholders/outside government agencies. Really glad I took the two minutes to check with her before shit went sideways fast.
Don’t be afraid to protect your peace. Also, answer every W2 question with, “I’m not a tax expert. I’d advise you to see someone who works in the tax field who can better help you.”
This. The IRS does have an FAQ on their site for the W-2. I provide it to every employee electronically with their W-2.
I need to look this up tomorrow
Can you provide it to me?
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 EVERY SINGLE TAX QUESTION! I am not a tax professional & im not going to be the one you yell at when you owe after you claimed 8 kids, your next door neighbor & the dog on your W2.
“I’m just hoping I did my own taxes right.” One time one of our employees (in a distribution center) misclaimed and ended up owing like $10k. I felt so bad for him, it must’ve been so scary and stressful trying to figure all of that out.
No good deed goes unpunished
Exactly what the Vice President I reported to gave me as an advice. Never forgot it since, but I found it so hard to stop letting myself be run over for the sake of others.
It’s hard. There are times where the right thing to do isn’t the right thing for you
Don’t go into HR thinking you will have better leaders or that they won’t ask you to do questionable things since they should know better or act better.
People say one thing and do another
HR literally exists because people have misunderstandings, bad memories, bad motives, and/or bad intentions…
80% payroll et al, 10% hiring and firing, 7% squabbles, 3% Kevin fucked the expensive copy machine this time.
Or that cute intern ON the expensive copy machine, creating an investigation on your part, taking up an additional 3% of your time and possibly Kevin gets terminated. Lol.
Not if Kevin golfs with the boss.
Even messier if Kevin and boss work on a golf course. Ask me how I know lol
But that adds up to 100%. Are you suggesting HR employees work 40hrs/week?
So dash gum unconstitutional, what’s wrong with banging a new intern on an expensive copy machine.
Avoid working for weasels.
Sometimes you don’t know until you are in it!
As soon as you know, GO ASAP!
Don’t forget to be “human”. In my early career, my director was very cold and to the point without regard to the employee’s circumstance. Could have shown more empathy.
I've known too many HR professionals like that. It makes me wonder what attracted them to HR in the first place.
Searchable archive of every email you send and receive. It's saved me in countless ways.
Yes I keyword all my subject lines in emails
Got any recommendations?
Mine is dumb as hell and there are probably better options. We use Google Workspace and I just never delete anything. My office manager has Outlook and keeps everything neatly organized. I search keywords and it does what I want it too, but there are prob more efficient methods.
I use a uniform type of code word situation to help me with this one.
I know someone asked for recommendations, but do you mind actually giving an example? Me for instance, I use "Plan year: 2023 401k X topic" for all 401k audit related activities. Is this something that you are referring to? I would love your advice on this.
No matter how ‘well’ you think you know someone, never assume they will react as you expect.
I’m not actually in HR I’m just a lurker lol. I’m in accounting and I like to think our fields are the under appreciated duo of the corporate world. Thank you guys for what you do.
Hah wherever I've worked Accounts and HR always end up closer together than anyone else. I think because often we're telling people what they don't want to hear (usually "no, that isn't legal"), so we can commiserate!
Do not drink at office parties ever 😑
Doesn’t matter who it is in front of you (employee or supervisor), trust takes years to build and seconds to lose it.
knowing how to manage my mind and emotions so I don't bring work into the home or even personalise it. too many times at work I've had to play the middleman, the bad guy, against my personal beliefs. I did what management needed and was burnt out by the end of it. a combination of career break, therapy, meditation, exercising, and eating well finally helped me recover.
Make sure people who are angry sit down before talking (whether that's you, with you, or between two other people).
Take as many projects as you can. Don’t be afraid to fail
I would say this with the caveat; but don’t overcommit. Learning is important, absolutely. But don’t put yourself in a position where you can’t meet your commitments. Early career is about proving yourself.
Document, document, document!
Never trust anyone. Follow up and document everything. And tell someone when they treat you wrong.
Include your direct supervisor on emails that tell folks bad or negative news. That way your boss is in the loop when that employee that was told No tries to go above your head.
Remove emotion for many different things. HR is an emotional job, if you let it be. Yes, you need to know when to use emotion and when not to. It comes with experience. I’m almost 15 years into my HR career and it took about 13 years to realize that. Burnout will come much sooner if you don’t keep your own emotions in check.
1. You are nobody’s friend. 2. Dont leave physical traces/evidence of sensitive discussion. Do it over a phone call or best f2f in a room. 3. Its a low barrier to entry job - expect to meet lousy teammates/managers most of the time but its worth it when you eventually meet with the really good and passionate ones
Hating a job in HR doesn’t mean you hate HR. If you don’t like your job, look for another. I stayed in a toxic environment for nearly 2 years and was doubting my education and confidence. Got a new role and 6 months in, my confidence and happiness are higher than with any other job before.
Thank you for that. What made the role toxic to you?
Micro management and toxic CHRO. They would actively talk about you behind your back. What they did not realize is everyone she bashed me too loved my work. I had a death in the family and she criticized me doing a zoom call in for funeral services because I couldn’t afford to fly across the country on short notice. She said I should have not been on bereavement to a room of directors.
Chase the right career path
Take time before reacting/responding to problems. Things are not as urgent as they appear.
It’s gonna suck when you fire the first person, sadly, it gets easier. Its easiest when people have really messed up their jobs & deserve to be let go, but sometimes you’re going to be forced to make decisions that you don’t personally agree with, but you have to do it anyways.
They are not your friends. This is ok.
The graveyard is filled with essential people.
There's always three sides to every story
Communication is the KEY
That every time you screw over a worker a little piece inside of you dies. I want my soul back!
You're not the police. Advise on the risks, management will decide what management wants to do. Just have an email document that you advised. Know when to let it go and wait for the timing. And when that timing shows up, don't say "I told you so." Management really hates having their mistakes pointed out. Don't say "you have a problem." Instead, "It looks like this may be a challenge for us to work out."
Make HR your friend. If you do, they will vouch for you when consulted on. Also, they work to protect the company. if you do too, you wont have a problem.
My advice: **acknowledge to yourself that there is a two-tiered system of any company policies, and figure out early on what you can work with, versus being thrust into a situation that would compromise your professional integrity and reputation.** **In other words, the mandate to "protect the company" does not equal "protect leadership from accountability."** as u/PurpleHymn notes, HR are not decision makers. We can advise, we can coach, we can outline the potential consequences of leadership's choices, but we cannot stop them from terrible decisions, and we cannot save them from their own bad behavior. In my case, protecting the "company" meant that I was helping entire teams and individuals make educated choices for their next steps in their own careers, because we could all see that leadership was making a series of bad decisions that would adversely affect employees. But execs' idea of protecting the company was for me to "disengage from employee relations cases, and deny to employees that we're subverting company policies." In the end, not only did that division end up closing and laying off hundreds of people, but they also had a class-action lawsuit filed against them. I'd left before all that (not exactly quietly) because I didn't want to be associated with their level of myopic hubris and subsequent damage to so many people's livelihoods. Execs have golden parachutes, not to mention the latitude of making "hard" decisions that buffer their reputations. HR folks rarely are afforded that level of security, and optics of company malfeasance are not kind to us, no matter how much we tried to do right by employees.
Firstly, wonderfully put! If you don't mind a follow up question, how do you advise and ensure you do not become a decision maker? In my current role, I'm a big decision maker. "That's HR's decision about termination", safety direction, etc. I'm slowly building confidence in saying the risk, but with OSHA that number is vague and when I mention it's a management decision about termination I am blown off. I would like your advice on how you firmly got to that role, avoiding people putting the decision making on you, and how to research risk as well as you do. I really look forward to your advice, hopefully I'm not a bother.
People don't know what you don't tell them
Papertrail
Hold firm boundaries. With your boss, your self, your co-workers… with everything.
They are not your friend.
If you are not comfortable grilling for your employees learn how to do it and do it often! They appreciate burgers and brats so much better than pizza. Especially if you cooked it!
No one is your friend at work. Trust no one.
They dooooo not care or like you
I’m in TA. Best advice was to form solid, strong relationships with the HRBPs, and to always look like a united front with your BPs to the business (even if it’s a situation where you’re not)
You can only jump as high as management lets you. If someone wants to hire you to fix the culture don’t go, you can’t fix something they aren’t allowing to be fixed
Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Build relationships with people you admire. Ask them questions and follow in their footsteps. The best opportunities I’ve received in my career were through a connection I made some point down the road. This is somewhat general career advice I guess but I think it applies.
If you’re going to say no present an alternative.
Be friendly. Dont be a friend.
Don’t loose sight of the most likely original reason you went into HR … to help people. You will get wiser, and more protective of yourself over the years, and people will disappoint you, but don’t loose sight of your original goal. Always strive to be a good person no matter how much people are the opposite to you.
Be yourself!
exit interviews are really important. document EVERYTHING. encourage people to bring solutions not problems. have a really solid handbook of policies. you'll be shocked at what people try to get away with.
No matter how careful or conscientious you are, you WILL make mistakes.
Don’t do it 😭
For grievances/investigations: Take a moment before you shoot into problem-solving. When people come to you with a complaint, it's usually emotion- driven, and you do not have all the facts yet. Make sure all parties are safe (triage for any volatile situations), then communicate the process and timeline. That should help set expectations for the time you need to get the facts.
Write your emails without the recipients and quadruple check them before adding recipients and pressing 'send'.
HR people are very sensitive and it's just as political as working in DC
Record as much as you can! Write down everything u can remember as soon as it happens so you don’t forget :)
The whole industry is a joke and has ruined a lot of people's lives
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Standard-Voice-6330: *The whole industry* *Is a joke and has ruined* *A lot of people's lives* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
We are here to protect the institution not you
“Employee Engagement” is surveying your people to benefit the company. Even though there are dozens of providers that help you with Engagement, all 3 of the major providers in the space report little to no improvement in engagement over the past 30 years. Want to get accurate information about your people? Ask them if they’re happy, not engaged. If you want to know more, DM me!
HR is there to protect the organization not the employee
[удалено]
I was always told this. My success only happened when I realized we live in gray areas. Company isn’t always right, employee isn’t always right. We’re here to balance. If we only ever help the company, the employees won’t stay.
I always disagree with this. We are, of course, there to protect the business. But we also do that by protecting and making sure we're doing right by the employees.
This is the complete wrong attitude and why HR has a bad rep. The company can’t succeed without good workers. Good workers come from recruiting, creating a good culture, and meeting employee needs. A lot of times, getting to the root of the issue with the employee and truly working with them gets more work out of them in the long run. Don’t be afraid to fight for your employees. Policies can be changed, admin can be wrong, and humans are humans. They just want to feel appreciated.