The Dark Side of HR

It’s further away, it’s mysterious, it’s very often misunderstood and, partly thanks to Pink Floyd, it’s probably spoken about more than the closer side of the Moon. That’s pretty much where the similarities end, as far as my imagination goes. But they are telling. In this post, we will take the typical notion of HR as being a department of cold-hearted demons scheming how to make your life that much more miserable and, with a fun use of exaggerations, explore how much truth lies within it.

In my previous article, we referred to HR departments as being on a THR-ODHR spectrum: basically, from very transactional to very business focussed. The dark side of HR lies in its reactive day-to-day work (THR), but there are large-scale change processes (ODHR) that can also reinforce the negative image HR has. Starting with a THR example, the staff member who raised a grievance about a colleague making racial slurs (I will never share real cases I have dealt with, only made-up ones; although my limited imagination will quickly surface...) will find herself embroiled in a seemingly long-winded process whereby the alleged perpetrator may or may not eventually be subject to a disciplinary process, which will also be seemingly long-winded and cumbersome. Both victim and culprit will find the process - which is in place to protect them - tiresome, and it will, at one stage or another, inevitably expose them to someone from HR. Now, that someone from HR can have a different approach to this sort of meetings; but, ultimately, they need to be calm, somewhat reserved, extremely professional and as objective as possible. None of these words describe humanity, especially in the eyes of the victim and perpetrator, who are, to some extent, a ball of nerves during these meetings.

The HR professional needs to be calm, somewhat reserved, extremely professional and as objective as possible

So there we have the simplest reason why HR have their dark side. Or so it would seem. The need for the HR professional to maintain a sort of distance during those tricky meetings is partly a coping mechanism - hearing how somebody feels verbally abused to their core does not sit well with anybody (to stick to the same example). And it requires a skill that must be developed through experience: compartmentalisation; i.e.: knowing how to focus on one task or conversation at a time, without allowing other thoughts to fog your behaviour. It is a constant battle in HR, where you want to tell the person suffering these racial slurs or some other form of bullying or harassment that you once fired so-and-so for similar behaviours and that it’s all going to be okay; but you can’t: you have to live in the moment, be objective, work with the information given to you and maintain confidentiality in regards to every other conversation you’ve potentially ever had on a professional level within the HR department. That being said, I did mention you can approach these meetings differently, and thus show compassion and empathy - and you should. However, it still comes down to the victim/perpetrator’s perspective of the HR person during the meeting, because that is how the HR person will be described to their closest friends and family.

And, so, we see how the negative image of HR is shared: through close networks of trust. Because the person who raised the grievance will only tell her closest friends and the person accused of making racial slurs may tell a potentially even smaller group of people. Thus, we have pockets of versions of events and opinions muddied by the distortions that our feelings cause when under pressure, when we feel uncomfortable; even threatened. And this is an important aspect of the Dark Side of HR: it stems from the confidentiality inherent to these difficult conversations, a confidentiality held by both the business HR represents and the employees involved in the process, some of whom will even find it is personal. So, what is shared more publicly about the gruelling process of raising a grievance or undergoing a disciplinary process? Not the confidential details, but the disclosable ones that throw the blame back at HR. And I tested it - not in the most scientific way - but I did a quick search on Twitter (as I wrote this) for tweets containing “HR Department” and found a tweet in the top 10 most recent results complaining about an HR process and how HR are being overpaid (this person missed my previous post). I couldn't tell from this tweet if the person had done something professionally questionable or how HR had made the wrong decision, only that he was angry at the department. I hope his HR department don't read his tweets.

And, so, we see how the negative image of HR is shared: through close networks of trust.

On that note, the Dark Side of HR also reinforces its own existence through social media and those pockets of misinformation. Because, if after an informal chat with my manager HR ask me in for a talk, I will go in with all the above in mind: “they’re here just to catch me, they don’t care, they’ll just find a way to get me out or to get someone else fired”. That mindset will further muddle my perspective and feed into the pockets of untruths (which are probably large pouches by now). And this is further complicated by HR being a support function. It can easily shrug off accountability (this is not a condonation of such a thing) and indeed say they did nothing - they just offered the formal, compliance-focused support to line managers to do what they think is right. But is it right? Do managers always seek out the truth from an investigation process? Could they sometimes be looking for ways to sack a person based on simply not getting along very well, looking a bit different, having an accent or not being good enough for the business football team? The fact that I can ask this question and it may resonate with some means that surely there is some truth in an affirmative answer. But HR is not doing HR when it listens to poor management decisions. At that stage, HR is just acting as a pack of rabid dogs ready at the evil CEO’s command. This is not HR. This is either a poor HR department or a very poor management team who do not empower HR, but keep them on a leash.

HR is not doing HR when it listens to poor management decisions. At that stage, HR is just acting as the pack of rabid dogs ready at the evil CEO’s command.

I did also mention at the start that the Dark Side of HR is not only in its transactional operations, but also its large-scale change management extravaganzas. And this links with what we just saw: HR is a support function; it could suggest structural changes, but those are probably going to come from upper management. You may see where I’m going with this already: organisation restructures, redundancy processes, large changes driven by business needs and supported by HR. They are morbid. They are formal presentations about business strategy to colleagues you may have learned to consider friends and who may not even be around at the end of the process. They are cold words uttered in monotone at faces flushed in tears of desperation and worry. They are conversations with the walking dead. The epitome of the Dark Side of HR. And yet it is the HR professional’s job to scrutinise (and challenge) the restructure plan, find what will be needed in place to take it forward (changes to job descriptions and compensation packages, new training, communications, etc.) and support the managers’ decision and its implementation. How can HR come out of this sort of process unscathed? Of course HR is evil! And these processes can be large enough to hit the news!

Let’s summarise: there is a Dark Side of HR, which is exacerbated by their own need to stay calm before the very contrasting mental state of the people they speak with, who can later share their experiences and further feed into the notion of the Dark Side of HR, which can also be aggravated by a lousy HR department and/or poor management.

What all this means is that HR professionals must be resilient to handle difficult conversations and capable of maintaining the highest standard of confidentiality. But HR can also work to change the misguided perceptions by taking time during difficult meetings to make people feel relaxed and help them understand that HR is not biased or against them; quite the contrary.

It’s further away, it’s mysterious, it’s very often misunderstood and, because of how much a chat with HR can affect your professional life, it’s probably spoken more about than the positive work HR do. And they definitely do positive work! It’s just that “The Bright Side of HR” doesn’t have as good a ring to it for a blog post.