Human Resources: to trust or fear your local department?

As a corporate communicator,  I’ve written countless pieces of messaging that explain the going-ons of human resources departments, and have spent a good amount of time preaching the benefits of trusting HR with questions or concerns – what is generally called an “open door policy.” 

I have always believed that the HR department is worthy of this trust, however, a recent conversation I had with a HR professional led me to question this belief. I couldn’t quite put these doubts into words until a friend sent me an article that talked about HR and the issue of confidentiality. The article, titled “Can an Internal Coach or HR Pro Be Trusted With Your Secrets?,” raises the question of whether an internal HR professional can truly be a reliable confidant if they are also expected to help make decisions about promotions or firings.

The writer, Jennifer McClure, was a former internal HR coach and she expresses surprise and sadness over this lack of trust. She says HR staff are unfairly ”thrown under the bus” when it comes to confidentiality and credibility. As an internal coach, she was frustrated that her employees didn’t trust her to help because of her position within the company — even though she did understand the concern.

Should this distrust really surprise anybody, though? If you look back at the history of HR, you will find that the field was created by management at large companies to increase the productivity of staff who were negatively responding to a post-industrial revolution working environment. At the time of origin, the employers had little concern over employee’s mental health and more concern about their physical ability to produce a product, so HR became the mediator. Over the years, HR evolved as a way to enforce labor laws and ethical standards produced by the federal government, and today, has the added responsibility of ensuring employee engagement and satisfaction as a way to produce maximum business potential for management.

Since HR has these divided loyalties, Jason Seiden – in response to McClure’s article — argues that not all HR professionals are a danger to their employees, but that they need to be more clear about their dual roles since they are perceived to hold great power within the organization. He proposes that before having a conversation with an employee, the HR professional should say something like, “Remember, I have a dual role here. I have an obligation to the company, and I also have information that I can’t share back with you; please keep that in mind.”

There is no doubt that this is a controversial subject — McClure’s article prompted a bevy or emotional comments — and I have personally been forced to confront this issue recently. In my opinion, a bit more honesty, like the statement that Seiden proposes, would go a long way to build more credibility for HR professionals. 

I am interested in knowing what you think: Is trust an issue when it comes to HR? Is it just a well-known fact that you should stay away from that area or do you think HR professionals provide a critical support for employees?

“There’s No Shame in Making Tea”

I’ve always believed – and acted on the belief- that the best managers are the ones that started working on the front lines of a company. They truly understand the perspective of their employees because they have done the work themselves. But how many times should a person have to hang out on the bottom rung of the work ladder before they’ve banked some credibility?  Is it anytime you change departments or job functions? What about if you move from one company to another?

I took these questions to learned ones on the World Wide Web and found a couple of thoughts.  Given the present economy, most of the articles are about how to keep your job instead of how to move up in your job, but there were a couple of notable ideas.

The Guardian’s job site told me that “there’s no shame in making tea,” especially if I want a job in media. You have to start at the bottom and work your up by looking for internal postings, becoming skilled in different facets of your industry and showing a passion for leadership and movement.  That’s logical enough and I think most people who are in the work-world can add a check to this on their work to-do list. JobBite.com had similar words of encouragement and told me to “pull the trigger” if I want to change careers, but just don’t be afraid to start at the bottom.

However, the real jewels of information came from an article that Michelle Goodman wrote in 2006 for the Seattle Times, titled “Smashing Career-Changing Myths.” Myths 3 and 5 get right to the heart of my question and the answer is … be patient. She says that, “when it comes to career happiness, impatience is the kiss of death.” Furthermore, I should try a bunch of jobs in my 20’s and early 30’s to see which ones are a good fit, but be patient when it comes to success. Apparently, the 30’s are the new 20’s even in the work world.

Although my research didn’t exactly answer my question, apparently this thought is on the minds of plenty of other “young professionals” out there. Real-life stories of people actually being hired above the bottom rung may just have to satiate my hunger for this question. So if you have a personal tale or even a story of a friend-of-a-friend, fill me in.