I agree with Dagon’s criticism elsewhere in the thread. However, I would add another criticism. You’re confusing the surface purpose of HR with its actual purpose.
The surface purpose of HR is to efficiently match people with jobs. The actual purpose of HR is to ensure that the company can efficiently navigate the byzantine thicket of laws and regulations concerning hiring, employment and firing without getting sued, ensuring that benefits for current employees are well managed, and finally when an employee is involuntarily let go (either fired or laid off) that the letting go is once again done in a manner that will minimize the company’s exposure to legal liability.
Every so often, you hear of various start-ups (usually in Silicon Valley, but sometimes elsewhere) getting pilloried for making absolutely basic mistakes when hiring. Things like asking candidates their age, or questions clearly correlated with age. Asking (female) candidates about their plans for a family. Etc. Basic errors that a large corporation with a functioning HR department wouldn’t even dream of making. That is the true purpose of HR. It’s ensuring that your interviewers aren’t doing clearly illegal things. It’s giving the appearance of fairness (even if actual fairness is difficult to achieve).
And that’s all prior to hiring. After hiring, HR becomes even more important. Do you know all the tax forms that have to be filled out when you hire a new employee? What about if that employee is remote? What about if that employee is remote but moves from a state with no income tax to a state with income tax (as I did, once). What forms do you need to give the employee to allow him or her to file his or her taxes when you’ve issued them with stock options or RSUs? What about health insurance. Are you qualified to choose between health insurance plans for a company of 50 employees? 500 employees? 5000 employees? What about 401(k)s? A well qualified HR department knows the answers to all that and a lot more besides.
Finally, let’s say you have to let some people go (as so many companies are having to do, during these economically troubled times). Do you know how to administer severance packages? Can you get COBRA forms to everyone efficiently? If it’s an individual being fired for cause, rather than a mass layoff, have you collected data to show that the individual was underperforming and was not fired because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, etc. etc?
HR is infrastructure. The fact that you don’t notice what it’s doing is a feature. That means it’s working well. People notice HR when it fails. When the company gets sued for discrimination. When they don’t get the right tax forms in a timely manner. When there’s a benefits snafu that leads them to have to wait an extra month before their health insurance kicks in. Matching people with jobs is the tiniest part of what HR does on a day-to-day basis, so I would expect them to be not very good at it.
I agree with Dagon’s criticism elsewhere in the thread. However, I would add another criticism. You’re confusing the surface purpose of HR with its actual purpose.
The surface purpose of HR is to efficiently match people with jobs. The actual purpose of HR is to ensure that the company can efficiently navigate the byzantine thicket of laws and regulations concerning hiring, employment and firing without getting sued, ensuring that benefits for current employees are well managed, and finally when an employee is involuntarily let go (either fired or laid off) that the letting go is once again done in a manner that will minimize the company’s exposure to legal liability.
Every so often, you hear of various start-ups (usually in Silicon Valley, but sometimes elsewhere) getting pilloried for making absolutely basic mistakes when hiring. Things like asking candidates their age, or questions clearly correlated with age. Asking (female) candidates about their plans for a family. Etc. Basic errors that a large corporation with a functioning HR department wouldn’t even dream of making. That is the true purpose of HR. It’s ensuring that your interviewers aren’t doing clearly illegal things. It’s giving the appearance of fairness (even if actual fairness is difficult to achieve).
And that’s all prior to hiring. After hiring, HR becomes even more important. Do you know all the tax forms that have to be filled out when you hire a new employee? What about if that employee is remote? What about if that employee is remote but moves from a state with no income tax to a state with income tax (as I did, once). What forms do you need to give the employee to allow him or her to file his or her taxes when you’ve issued them with stock options or RSUs? What about health insurance. Are you qualified to choose between health insurance plans for a company of 50 employees? 500 employees? 5000 employees? What about 401(k)s? A well qualified HR department knows the answers to all that and a lot more besides.
Finally, let’s say you have to let some people go (as so many companies are having to do, during these economically troubled times). Do you know how to administer severance packages? Can you get COBRA forms to everyone efficiently? If it’s an individual being fired for cause, rather than a mass layoff, have you collected data to show that the individual was underperforming and was not fired because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, etc. etc?
HR is infrastructure. The fact that you don’t notice what it’s doing is a feature. That means it’s working well. People notice HR when it fails. When the company gets sued for discrimination. When they don’t get the right tax forms in a timely manner. When there’s a benefits snafu that leads them to have to wait an extra month before their health insurance kicks in. Matching people with jobs is the tiniest part of what HR does on a day-to-day basis, so I would expect them to be not very good at it.