Hacker News Reader

Comment by dougb5 | Hacker News Reader

"Politics and micromanagement have taken over, and HR processes take up far too much of everyone’s time."

How is the HR the cause here? From the mismanagement that the author describes in the preceding paragraphs, it sounds like HR involvement was too little, not too much, because the problems are symptomatic of poorly trained managers. Too many engineers are unable to see the contradiction when they complain about people problems, and then in the next breath question the need for any people or processes to help with those problems.

View on HN

Hmm. I don't want to sound harsh, but I've been in the industry for nearly 3 decades and I've never been in a place where HR has been effective in helping train managers. I'm not saying it never happens, just that I haven't seen it. In fact, I wouldn't generally characterize HR departments as paragons of good management, so I'm not sure they are usually in a position to teach such things. Not their fault really, I don't think good management is that teachable. It's mostly learned through experience.

I think it's not just experience, it's partly about picking the right people, and not picking the wrong people. Some people are just not good managers, and no amount of training is going to make them a likeable person with good people skills needed to lead a team of people. Many places seem to want to pick someone who has the best technical skills, and then assume he'll magically become a great manager somehow.

I think sometimes HR gets blamed for stuff that's really upper management's fault. HR can try to patch over the bad decisions and deal with the interpersonal problems caused, but there's really not that much they can do because they have no real power, and the problems are caused by inept management. It's not HR's fault when upper management decides to promote people to management who clearly don't have the right personality for it, and that's not something HR can fix.

Since when HR has no real power? In most places they can block any hiring decision . That's a lot of power and no accountability

You must have worked in some shitty companies. HR is treated differently in different companies. The ones you worked in sound like companies where the HR department has some incestuous relationship with the C-suite (or more likely, the owner). That's not the norm for all companies; in better-run companies, HR only functions at the pleasure of the departments that actually make money. So if a hiring manager wants to hire someone, that person gets hired (assuming the department head supports the decision), and any problems from HR result in the department head (for instance, engineering) going to the CEO and telling them to do something about HR.

I've seen horror stories about companies like yours on places like glassdoor.com. Those are places to be avoided at all costs.

> In fact, I wouldn't generally characterize HR departments as paragons of good management, so I'm not sure they are usually in a position to teach such things

Exactly. HR is there to comply with certain regulations and otherwise minimize the number of lawsuits that the company is a party to.

Maybe if they're really good they might have a robust professional development program but that's certainly not a given!

"HR is not your friend."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com