So I’ve still got some ongoing problems at work with my line manager, contract, break times, workload. Long story short, a while ago problem with line manager, have meeting with the head of HR, seems to sort things out a bit, last month or so line manager seems to have forgotten that meeting or anything said in it. So, I go to head of HR again to raise the issues and I’m basically told to sort it out with my line manager, HR is going to do nothing to look at my contract, alter it (amend it so it states my hours of work and breaks, plus my job description is completely wrong, or rather very short compared to what I actually do, for the work I’m doing), so basically nothing. Is this normal? I’ve never had problems at work before, so assumed this would be the person to see, why would I want to try and sort it out with my line manager when the line manager is the problem. We already had one member of staff leave last year after lots of arguments and stress, now it seems I’m the next target.

Half way through my meeting with HR I realise I’m just wasting my time, the response to everything is ‘have a meeting with *little hitler’, then she just changes the subject to holidays or dogs. Apparently this is the response that everyone gets when they go to her with problems.

Sorry for the generalisation, but this is my only experience of HR people other than when i apply for a job.

Who else would I go to at work? What would STW do? I have recently joined a union on the advice of a few people at work, first time in 35 years of working as I’ve never had cause to be with one, hopefully getting some advice from them but can they really do anything to help?

*this is not his name but what someone from another department calls him.

No, they aren’t but finding a good one is rare, I’ll agree that.

In your situation – if they won’t rewrite your contract, do it yourself. Document what your role / breaks, etc. are and then send it to her and your manager with a formal letter of ‘as discussed on x.xx.xxxx this is the actual reflection of my role and hence this is what i am proposing we adopt as my new contract going forward’

Not that I’d often say this, but channel Donny here – go in asking for a bit more than you want (certainly don’t ask for less than you’re entitled to) and do it now. Write the letter today and put it in tomorrow.

Save the Union for now, but keep everything above board and documented in case you need them later, and if there is a Union rep at work no harm to copy them in.

They’ll either agree to it or alternatively it’ll force them to document in their way what you are asking for / compromise to.

Sounds more like someone who’s not very good at their job rather than HR per se but do remember that HR’s job is to protect the company not look after your interests.

but do remember that HR’s job is to protect the company not look after your interests.

This. HR like to pretend that they are all warm and friendly, beginning with when they hire you, but at the end of the day they work for the company, not for you.

remember that HR’s job is to protect the company not look after your interests.

Yep.  A lot of people don’t understand this which is why they feel HR are not very good whereas in reality they may be very good at ensuring the company don’t break employment laws, keeping things out of the press etc,.

You will find that most things are at the managers discretion unless there are going t be implications to the company in which case they suddenly are not any longer.

Brilliant advice from theotherjonv…….

Just remember to replace the phrase “going forward” with “in the future.”

Sounds a bit more professional.

My experience is they are useless and incompetent by and large

Standard operating procedure:

Manager: “We’re just acting on what HR instruct us to do.”

HR: “We advise your manager, but they make the decision.”

Time to look for a job elsewhere?

Generally they follows a process, so ask what the process it or do what theotherjonv said. In balance I find a lot of people inside a business to also be useless, unable to think outside their bubble and stuck only doing what they have always done 😉 Often means going to people like HR becomes frustrating because neither side know what they want or are doing.

If you’re being told to work longer hours or skip breaks you’re legally entitled to then HR should definitely step in, from the perspective of “manager is causing the company to break the law by insisting on this”.

But ultimately if you’re being asked to do things that are legal but not what you signed up for, your company can ask you to do that. Job description is mostly meaningless in a legal context, and changing your contract to benefit you would be entirely at their discretion. It sucks and it’s not a good way to keep employees.

If the behaviour is specific to this manager and you otherwise like the company it might be worth taking to someone above him (i.e. his manager, HR is there to advise on HR matters, not handle every grievance in the company). If you can’t do that it sounds like it’s time to start job hunting.

Unless the manager is doing something that could land the company into losing at an employment tribunal , hr wont be very interested in getting involved. Hr are there to stop the company getting taken to tribunal by employees and to try and ensure it gets the staff it needs at the lowest price, they dont care about you unless it could result in losing a tribunal.

If you remember that Human Resources means “humans as resources” and not “resources for humans” then you shouldn’t go too far wrong in your dealings with them.

One of our stations had 37 paramedics leave whilst one particular manager was in place. Apparently, meeting targets and staying within budget are more important than staff morale and team cohesion.

He applied for, and was given a promotion to a band 8 position. Speaks volumes for the managerial style within the Scottish Ambulance Service. 🙄

Hr wont get involved in workloads. As others have said hr there to protect the company more so than thee employee. If the company is not complying with regulations then they will step in, but they will be approaching that from the perspective of making sure the company is covered, rather than your only personal grievances

You are a human resource, it’s like expecting the mining resource manager to worry about how the coal feels.

They’re useless by and large and have been for some time ever since companies now tend to outsource their HR. HR is now much more engaged on how they can reduce personnel costs to companies…like getting people to take jobs at lower salaries, promoting people, but not giving them a significant pay rise saying they’re ‘building growth and personal development into the role’ and other such harebrained scheme’s. The corker my company has come up with recently is that if. you get a promotion, you do the new job at the same grade as your previous one for 6 months to ‘prove yourself’, then dependent on your performance they’ll decide what your pay and benefits increase is.

So if you want some genuine advice or help from them, and I’m taking form the position as a staffing manager, they’re useless. They simply don’t have a clue because that is not the sort of thing the do these days. If you’re lucky enough to find an older person in the HR department they you might be good as they will have come from an age when they did do an actual useful job, but now good and capable people are being replaced by young inexperienced people who don’t go through the same level of training and experience before they get promoted to the level of their incompetence.

They should re-name HR and take the Human bit our of the title as there is nothing Human about what they do these days. Sure, as in any profession there are good people and bad people, but it seems to me the fundamental function and purpose of HR has changed from what it used to be.

I’m a HR Manager and not useless. Not sure if that helps. 😀

Have you thought about becoming an Estate Agent?

I’m a HR Manager and not useless. Not sure if that helps. 😀

trouble with HR people is they are so useless they can’t even recognise that they are useless at their job…

Not sure you’ll find many HR Managers these days, they all seem to be calling themselves HR Business Partners now.

About 25 years ago I was hating my job (in engineering) so much I sent in a letter of resignation and was ready to go back to uni to do an MSc in IT. Would have meant a year or two of no salary. A lovely lady in HR sent my letter back to me and instead managed to get me a transfer to the company IT dept as effectively a trainee, but still on my engineer’s salary. It changed my life totally.

You can’t judge an entire profession by one person, but she was brilliant. Went way beyond what her job actually was.

All ours are.

10 years ago they were the dogs danglies,wielding all the power. Now they are scared to lose their jobs and the ”planning” (ha) department are in charge.

Not sure you’ll find many HR Managers these days, they all seem to be calling themselves HR Business Partners now.

Or Talent Managers 🙁

You seem to mistaking as HR as being either a resource for you to complain to or you line manager’s boss. They are neither. They are a resource for your company to deploy as they see to make their use of ‘human resource’ legal and productive.

If you have a problem with either your line manager or feel they should be sorting something for you and not the correct person to report this to is their line manager not HR.

Thanks all. I’m going to speak to the union later today, hoping they might be able to make clear what no one else seems to be able to. I’ve mentioned my contract several times to HR now and they do nothing. I said I want my break times written into it (not times as such but I’m at work 8.5 hours a day and was told when I started 4 years ago I get 1 hour unpaid, so get paid for 7.5 hours) also I wrote out a list of what I do and showed it to her comparing to what’s on my contract, again nothing. I also mentioned ‘custom and practice’ which someone mentioned in another thread somewhere, as I’ve been working a certain way for nearly 4 years and my line manager is trying to change it all of a sudden, again nothing – I’m not sure exactly where I stand with this, it’s been mentioned by a few people at work too, but my line manager and HR don’t aknowlegde it. I’ve also mentioned that my line manager said I wasn’t entitiled to any breaks during the day, I pointed out that’s illegal to him and HR and again nothing.

There’s a lot more to it then I’ve just mentioned. Think I’ll be doing what theotherjonv suggests and write my own contract and send it to HR and my line manager. I might also contact his line manager to let them know what’s been going on.

I am currently looking for a new job anyway, have been since this all started last year, but they are few and far between, I’m considering something completely different as a stop gap but even then there’s not much around. I live in a south east seaside town, not much going on here workwise other places to work are Brighton and Eastbourne, Brighton’s a pain to get to everyday and there’s not much in Eastbourne unless you want to go into care work or work in a supermarket, nothing against that kind of work but it would be quite a pay drop. Don’t want to carry on working where I am and told HR this, I’ve come very close to just handing in my notice anyway. So in some ways I’m quite happy to stir things up, email whoever, point things out, be awkward – still do my job but question everything.

I said to HR in my last meeting that I’ll only do as written in my contract – work to rule. Of course they have a line saying ‘and any other resonable request’, I said who’s to say what’s reasonable, it needs to be clarified what is a reasonable request as they could ask me to do anything.

Anyway, thanks all for the advice, think I’ll be spending a day or so writing some emails to my line manager, their line manager and HR. It’s a horrible situation to be in, worse things in life I know but it’s stressful and counterproductive, feels like I’m banging my head against a brick wall.

Don’t do anything without speaking to the union

Hi tjagain, I’m speaking to union later, I’ll be telling them what’s happening, what’s been suggested I do and ask their advice or if they have suggestions about what to do … no idea how long this will take though as I suppose they’ll need to get advice from someone who might know more from a legal standing.

Thanks

I tend to think of HR people as the touchy feely (OK not literally) empathetic types who chose the career path thinking it will be about dealing with people issues and helping sort out problems. In reality there’s a lot of rules and regulations (especially in big companies), lots of reporting required and a need to understand the requirements of certain roles – all of which the typical HR type seems to fail badly at. There are ofc lots of exceptions and perception also isn’t helped by them often not having much leeway in what they can do.

As with all company departments you need to manage them.  I think the idea of documenting you role is first class.  it may not work, but at least it is a starting point.  The best course I ever attended was a course on managing your manager and teh same applies to all departments.

One thing HR should do is to make sure that your manager is following the law.  The company cannot ask you to break the law.  Breaks are a legal requirement, if you manager is asking to work your breaks then they are breaking the law.  Read up on what the Working Time Directive has for you.  Also look at your contract, if it requires a certain number of hours per week, work those hours and then leave.  If they are asking you to work extra hours all the time, then you should just ignore them (easier to say than to do!)

Good luck

HR – Basically professionally nosy bastards, they get know almost everything that is going on but generally are bystanders in the decision making process: see also – Teflon.

My experience is they are useless and incompetent by and large

yep, does seem to be a profession where the bar is so low, you wonder how they manage to tie their own shoe laces sometimes…..

Ok..ill bite

Having worked in hr for years I can confirm that there are just as many incompetent folks in all walks of life

No one aspires to be in HR, they just end up there.

HR will tell you what you want to hear and make lots of empathetic facial expressions.

Typically they are extremely close to the Board.

They are not your union rep.

The rot set in with the change from “Personnel” to “Human Resources”.

Tpbiker

Sure there must be some competent ones but I have never met one

Personal experience.   A manager wanted me out.   I was entitled to £400 and a months notice.   Myself as an ex union rep and my other half who is a rights advisor gave the HR professional enough rope to hang himself.   I had seven months of garden leave and a £7000 compromise agreement.   All to save £2000pa. We ran rings around him.  He didn’t even know the basics

Sounds l8ke you need to activate your company grievance procedure. Which at one company I used to work for was “take it to the M.D.”

HR is there to do the managements bidding, nothing more.

@TJ, it was like that when I was waiting for redundancy for the bank, we kept on getting utter nonsense thrown at us all the way through and me and a colleague just kept on batting it back. It was like “Hey, you know how you like to hire graduates, then forget their qualifications?” Basically the only time I used my degree in 5 years in that job was to terrorise HR people.