Improving Your Workplace: Putting the “Human” Back in Human Resources

This is a new series of posts inspired by the course I am teaching entitled "Organizational Psychology." The intent is to remind workers, managers, and top-level leaders about best practices in the workplace - tried and true principles that will make the workplace better for all of us. Today we focus on human resources departments and functions.

Having a problem in the workplace? Employees are taught and told to go to Human Resources. HR is supposed to be the advocate of the worker - offering support, advice, and protection from mistreatment. But so often I hear from workers that their HR department is cold, impersonal, and bureaucratic. "They didn't do anything." "They don't really care about anything except avoiding getting sued." "They made me feel like I was the problem."

All too often, HR departments become consumed with their personnel functions - recordkeeping, enforcing policy and regulations, conveying factual information - and they forget the "human" functions -- counseling employees, listening to their concerns, providing support - the kinds of things that help alleviate employee worries/stress and boost morale. The many bureaucratic concerns, coupled with the fear of getting sued (employment litigation is a huge issue), cause HR professionals to become detached and impersonal - but that works against the "human" aspect of human resources.

So, what is the solution?

1. HR professionals need to form close and personal communication lines with workers - getting out from behind the closed doors of the HR department, and engaging in "management by walking around."

2. HR needs to embrace their dual function of enforcing policies, carrying out the difficult work of having to be the bearer of bad news, and protecting the company's concerns, but also being an advocate for the worker. All too often, HR professionals over-identify with the company, and an us (management) vs. them (workers) mentality develops. HR needs to be a unifying bridge for management and labor.

3. Here's a lesson from healthcare: Develop and practice good counseling skills. Patients are less likely to sue doctors who have a good "bedside manner." Employees are better able to cope with bad news if it is softened by someone who is empathic and caring. Importantly, listen to, and take seriously, employee complaints and concerns.

So these are lessons for HR professionals. What about those of us who are rank-and-file employees? How does this relate to us?

First, a better understanding of where HR is coming from may help you approach them in a way that is likely to get results - understand their responsibility to enforce policies, threatening won't work (except as a last resort).

Second, you can send this post to someone in HR, or to those in leadership who you trust. It is the top-level leadership, both in HR departments, and overseeing those departments, who can change the tone and purposes of the HR department.

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