HR: Friend or Foe?

“When people treat you like they don’t care, believe them.” Author Unknown***

Unfortunately, I had a conversation…more than once…in which I had to explain to an HR professional why I had acted on an employee’s behalf the way that I did. While it wasn’t directly stated, the implication was that I was not looking out for the company’s best interests as much as I was for the employee’s.

My boss had no such concerns by the way, nor did the person above her. To them, I was doing a good job. To some others, however, my loyalty to the organization was questionable. When I shared this with my boss, she was quite surprised and stated her disagreement with that sentiment. I was, of course, relieved but you might have guessed I was highly annoyed that anyone would question my loyalty because I had done something to assist an employee, after all, isn’t that what people with a little authority or knowledge should do for those who need it?

After working in Human Resources for about eight years and an additional two years or so in a different role, I had come to the realization that the way I had been trained to carry out my role as an HR professional was not necessarily the way others approached the same work. When I moved into the new role I continued to use the initial framework I had been given while working in HR. This framework was not to view HR or the work of HR as that of friend or foe, but to be that neutral party that served the needs of the internal and external customer.

HR: Friend or Foe?

Employees often look to the Human Resources Department for new job opportunities, guidance or assistance navigating employment or management problems. Managers in an organization may see the HR department as serving them and serving as a resource for employees, not necessarily defenders of the employee. Executives may take the same or differing viewpoint, based upon organizational norms and the established relationships they have with the HR team.

Culture Determines Friend or Foe

As you might have guessed, the full gamut of what HR professionals do is not always intuitively discerned. The common perception of people in general, appears to be that the HR department is simply there to hire and fire. The role is truly defined by the culture of the HR department which is ultimately driven by the organizational culture.

Service-oriented Culture

The HR culture may be that the HR team is there to manage the employee process and facilitate the needs of the employee and facilitate the life cycle of their employment, which is every phase of entry, growth, development and exit. To put that in HR terms, that would be recruitment, onboarding, training and development, benefits, compensation, employee relations, engagement, voluntary and involuntary termination. This type of structure may be less likely to include the authoritarian image. It is more service oriented and usually involves service to management as well. It may be more authoritative in nature, which means they work in a collaborative partnership to guide parties to a common goal. In this service-oriented environment, HR staff may have less influence then they might otherwise have with management, while their appearance in the eyes of employees remains that of being an expert and authoritarian.

Authoritarian Culture

I view the authoritarian culture in an HR department as being one in which the HR team is viewed as being the final answer or the one who tells individuals what is and is not acceptable and those individuals comply with the instruction or directives given. In all honesty, I believe the historical image of HR aligns with this view and thus tends to remain in the minds of many, even if the HR team is structured in a more service oriented manner.

I once interviewed with a bank for an HR position. I was looking to leave an HR position at the time, so I cannot understand why I would apply for and go to an interview for the very thing I was attempting to flee… I wouldn’t be the first person but “why tho’?” As I walked through the hallways of the floors above the busy first floor banking atmosphere, I found myself growing more and more uncomfortable; the atmosphere was staunch and stiff. The décor was primarily dark brown and dark green. All the furniture was a dark wood. Every person I saw – male or female – wore a dark suit and a white shirt. The women all appeared to wear skirt suits, no pants. The art work on the wood paneled walls were that of ducks in the woods or ducks in the water. There was nothing bright and nothing light. You could hear a pin drop as a woman approached to greet me and walk me to the interview area. It was a straightforward interview that followed a psychological test…and it was not Myers-Briggs or other personality-type inventory. It too made me a bit uncomfortable. The atmosphere alone was enough to show me that it was not the most inclusive environment. That coupled with the less than friendly people I encountered showed that either it was a male dominated environment or the women and young people had little or no input into how things were structured. I could only imagine what it would be like to work in that atmosphere. Here I was coming from a chipper, “give ‘em a big smile and do everything but hug ‘em,” kind of atmosphere and I’m looking at the absolute opposite environment. I wasn’t impressed with anything other than how eager I was to go home. I began to pray they would not offer me a job. They didn’t but fortunately I was offered a promotion by my then current employer.

I think it would be safe to say this was a more authoritarian HR department. I later met someone who worked there and she confirmed by her own behavior and comments that my assumptions were correct… happy to have escaped that “opportunity.” While I may not appreciate the more stern, authoritarianism of such employers, I know some prefer it.

Employees Prefer Partnership

According to a PeopleManagingPeople.com article a 2021 Gallup poll found that only 36% of U.S. employees reported being engaged in their work and workplace and 20% of employees are engaged at work globally. A SHRM trends and forecasting survey revealed 45% of employees feel emotionally drained from their work. The survey showed the younger the employee the more likely they were to report these thoughts.

Why are employees not engaged? Finding the answer to this question is a huge undertaking and is usually the role of someone in HR… another role they play that people never think of. Employee engagement surveys are different than employee satisfaction surveys. Engagement surveys measure the level of commitment and participation in achieving company goals while satisfaction surveys measure an employee’s job satisfaction. The connection between the two is that employees who are disengaged are statistically found to be disconnected from their jobs and put forth less effort to perform. Drilling down the who, what, where, when and why of disengagement is an instrumental way of determining what may be going wrong in the organization. Working through the findings can make a huge difference in future engagement scores.

Other things that HR can embark upon in partnership with management is monitoring employee turnover, employee relations and diversity, equity and inclusion issues across the organization. When concerns arise, the HR team should partner with leadership to investigate and work towards changing the issues that are unveiled. All of these areas of monitoring and performance improvement can help move the needle of engagement in those areas and thus the entire organization. Drilling down to key details involves looking at the data according to multiple layers of demographic data. While this work can be tedious as tons of data comes back at you, the findings can be fascinating and the improvement process very satisfying. Though it is a long process and can take months to figure out and even longer to identify and implement change, seeing engagement scores improve in those areas and in overall scores is confirmation of work well done.

HR Need not be Friend or Foe

A staunch, stiff HR department or even a staunch, stiff leadership culture is less likely to partner with management to identify and dismantle the things that are disruptive to employee engagement. There may be some level of investigation but it may be more likely that line management would be charged with the work and the authoritarian HR leadership would expect them to handle it and report back. This is not quite the most effective approach but certainly predictable. Remember, an authoritarian culture is more of a “do as I say” culture, so they would expect managers to do what they are told and get employees to do the same, even if that is to open up and tell us why you’re not engaged. Again, not the most effective approach in an age where employees have little or no problem walking away from a job and moving on to the next.

Closing Comments

I am sure you could determine the direction I’ve been leaning on this topic from the beginning of this post. I am a strong advocate for fairness and respect. For me it doesn’t matter who I am working with, be it an employee, a volunteer, a manager or someone in the C-Suite. I was taught… by my parents… to respect everyone and to fight for fairness whenever I could influence the outcome.

I am of the opinion that authoritarianism just doesn’t work, no matter where it exists or who exerts it. Employees… volunteers…people are happier… more engaged in any organization, when they know they are being heard, when they know leadership cares what they think and how they feel, when they are recognized for the work they do, when the leaders are committed to eliminating barriers to success (personal and professional) and when leadership is honest in their communications and dealings with others and the organization invests in the provision of resources needed for employees to get their work done effectively. They want to be viewed as much more than pawns in a chess game. These are the things that improve engagement.

Let’s not fool ourselves. Friend or Foe, really does not matter to management or staff as long as they have the support they need when they need it. I recognize two very clear realities, HR is there to protect the company and HR is there to monitor the treatment of employees. So ultimately HR can be a friend and HR can be a foe. It depends on what side of the fence you are on and what your role is on that particular side of the fence. This is where I kept getting in trouble, and I really don’t mind it. I felt strongly that I was an advocate for employees when they needed an advocate, I was a supporter of management when they needed support and I was the facilitator for cooperation and resolution when cooperation and resolution was needed. I played any one of these roles when it was in the best interest of the organization and I believe I made it clear to everyone I served, that that was what I was going to do…”so mind your manners” so to speak. Keeping people engaged, keeping management in line and educating all on policy and procedure was and still is the contribution that HR makes to the success of the organization.

HR cannot really fall prey to being a friend or a foe. As I have often said, I took the side of what was right. So whoever was on my side of the fence, got the benefit of my support. The other side received respectful but meaningful correction. I never go complaints from the people I helped, just from the people who chose not to help.
HR: friend or foe? Neither.

Kind Regards!

C.