SO: What does HR do at your work do, and has it changed over the years?

[tvguy]

The thread looking for HR Experts for a question about COBRA caught me off guard.
Since the Affordable Health Care Act went into effect, HR at my work and my wife's work have nothing to do with Healthcare benefits. HR hands you a piece of paper with a toll free number for the insurance company help line.
Wondering how and if HR has changed or evolved over the years at your work.

My last employer, they added an HR person about 20 years ago who was there to be the advocate for employees with their managers when issues came up, and dealt with other work place disputes.
Vacation, sick leave, medical benefits were all handled by someone else in the Business office.
Then when times got tight, HR was eliminated.
When I came to my current job 11 years ago, they had HR, and there role was the same,employee advocate but here they also handled all benefits.

 

[lanejudy]

My company has a Benefits department that handles insurance and other employee benefits (paid time off, wellness program, etc.). There may be a "dotted line" connection between Benefits and HR, but it is a separate group of employees and possibly in a separate location (large company). Human Resources specifically deals with hiring and on-the-job issues.

 

[amcnj]

HR here handles payroll, benefits, recruitment/placement, employee issues, etc. The biggest change over the years that I have seen has been the time/resources needed to handle things like family leave.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

HR at my job deals with all of the above plus benefits. Some associates deal with different things. Some do hiring, some benefits, some tuition reimbursement, some do family leave/ disability and so on.

 

[tvguy]

My company has a Benefits department that handles insurance and other employee benefits (paid time off, wellness program, etc.). There may be a "dotted line" connection between Benefits and HR, but it is a separate group of employees and possibly in a separate location (large company). Human Resources specifically deals with hiring and on-the-job issues.

We have about 120 employees in our location.
Our HR person (yes, 1 person) also oversees 2 other similar sized locations in other states. So she is on the road frequently. Other than scheduling and signing people up, she doesn't conduct the sexual harassment and ethics seminars anymore, those are all done by an outside company and are all done online.
Our Payroll person handles just our location.
We have a Business manager, one Accounts Payable and one Accounts Receivable person, but they also oversee 2 other locations. They just happened to physically be at our location

 

[tasha99]

The thread looking for HR Experts for a question about COBRA caught me off guard.
Since the Affordable Health Care Act went into effect, HR at my work and my wife's work have nothing to do with Healthcare benefits. HR hands you a piece of paper with a toll free number for the insurance company help line.
Wondering how and if HR has changed or evolved over the years at your work.

My last employer, they added an HR person about 20 years ago who was there to be the advocate for employees with their managers when issues came up, and dealt with other work place disputes.
Vacation, sick leave, medical benefits were all handled by someone else in the Business office.
Then when times got tight, HR was eliminated.
When I came to my current job 11 years ago, they had HR, and there role was the same,employee advocate but here they also handled all benefits.

I have always thought of HR as an employer advocate, not an employee one. Maybe I'm wrong, but I always assume "protect the employer" (from lawsuits and such) was their bottom line.

 

[tvguy]

I have always thought of HR as an employer advocate, not an employee one. Maybe I'm wrong, but I always assume "protect the employer" (from lawsuits and such) was their bottom line.

I guess it depends how you look at it. The first HR people I worked with stepped in when an employee complained that there was an issue where a Manager was trying to do something they felt is out of line HR had the authority to overrule a Management decision when it came to employees. That of course, could prevent the company from being sued later.
The most extreme case was years ago. All the managers agreed to terminate an employee. Even though this person was an "at will" employee, HR had concerns about the circumstances so she overruled the termination. The big boss appealed that to corporate HR, who, after a review, allegedly told the big boss that local HR stepping in probably saved the company $1 million, and saved the big boss's job.

 

[DebbieB]

I work for a Fortune 500 company. No local HR, we have a regional rep who comes in occasionally. People actually get nervous when they see her, sometimes she is in to deliver a severance package or termination news. 800# to call for benefits questions.

 

[tvguy]

I work for a Fortune 500 company. No local HR, we have a regional rep who comes in occasionally. People actually get nervous when they see her, sometimes she is in to deliver a severance package or termination news. 800# to call for benefits questions.

Business managers have always handled severance packages....because in every instance where places I worked had layoffs, the HR person was one of those laid off.

 

[DebbieB]

Business managers have always handled severance packages....because in every instance where places I worked had layoffs, the HR person was one of those laid off.

Typically the Manager and HR rep are there when the employee is told at my place. I assume the Manager delivers the news and the HR rep goes over the package.

 

[tvguy]

Typically the Manager and HR rep are there when the employee is told at my place. I assume the Manager delivers the news and the HR rep goes over the package.

Thankfully I have only had first hand experience with this once. New owners over 6 months let go 59 of the 110 employees..,......the HR person was the first to be go. My supervisor wanted me gone, business manager went over the severance package.

 

[MomToOne]

In our case, HR is in charge of sending out all of the communications that tell us how they are going to cut our benefits - again.

This weeks was a gutting of our time off - with only 1 days notice of the policy change. A month or so ago it was dropping a key feature of the long-term disability plan WE PAY for - and not dropping the cost either.

And all of this is outside open enrollment. Can't wait to see what sort of upheaval they try to throw out at open enrollment. Last year's changes were obscene.

Yeah, I'm bitter - the gutting of the time off plan is a whopper, basically I am losing a very real $2000 this year because of it (long story). And that's real money, from my salary, not some sort of extra bonus I was expecting or a cash out of time or anything like that. The changes are so bad I fully expect a class action suit by California employees (the laws covering time off are stronger here).

All of this is because we merged with another company earlier in the year, and the CEO of the combined company is a real <expletive deleted>. He's trying to get people to quit, so he doesn't have to pay severance.

HR is completely about protecting management these days. I've seen it at multiple companies now. They don't represent the employees AT ALL - don't fool yourself about that. If you go to them with a problem such as an issue with a manager, they will just use what you tell them to make sure any evidence is destroyed, then make you out to be a troublemaker and get rid of you.

 

[Mickeyluver37]

I work at the corporate location for a large company, and a lot of the functions you are mentioning are separate departments- Payroll, Legal, Benefits, Employee Relations, Internal Recruiting, Diversity and Inclusion, Communications. Some roll up to the HR umbrella, some do not.

 

[disneylove69]

I have always thought of HR as an employer advocate, not an employee one. Maybe I'm wrong, but I always assume "protect the employer" (from lawsuits and such) was their bottom line.

HR is to make sure the employer is protected.

 

[tvguy]

HR is to make sure the employer is protected.

That was the point of my post. First HR I dealt with about 20-25 years ago was there to protect the employee. Now it is about protecting the employer.

 

[melanielll]

HR at the major oil company that my husband works for runs the company. And are despised for it. Everyone in a technical department can want to hire someone - they can veto it because the candidate didn't score high enough on an email sorting test. The diversity stuff is staggering and strangling to the business. Every round of layoffs - HR seems to be exempt. They have built a quagmire that only they can navigate.

 

[tvguy]

HR at the major oil company that my husband works for runs the company. And are despised for it. Everyone in a technical department can want to hire someone - they can veto it because the candidate didn't score high enough on an email sorting test. The diversity stuff is staggering and strangling to the business. Every round of layoffs - HR seems to be exempt. They have built a quagmire that only they can navigate.

HR does the drug testing and the background checks after managers select the candidate they want, other than that, and they get to do their own interview of that candidate, but don't get a vote on who gets hired.

 

[melanielll]

HR does the drug testing and the background checks after managers select the candidate they want, other than that, and they get to do their own interview of that candidate, but don't get a vote on who gets hired.

They do at the company my husband works for.

 

[tvguy]

They do at the company my husband works for.

Primary reason they don't get a say, they don't know the jobs of the industry. Our current HR person took a while to get her arms around the fact that holidays are normal work days, not days off.

 

[disneychrista]

I am the "HR" person for my employer. My job in HR is to ensure that we handle employment issues in accordance with applicable labor law.

In regards to Health Insurance, I make sure that employees are given the enrollment applications so that they can enroll when eligible. I also make sure that employees are given COBRA information upon termination. I am also available to answer questions regarding our insurance though in a lot of cases this is simply referring them to the insurance website or to have the call the 800# on back of the card.

I am available for employees who may have issues with other employees or their managers. Thankfully this is not a big issue.