Top 10 Reasons Why HR Sucks!!

Yes, I know....How could one of our own write this??? These are some of the HR pet peeves that unpluggedHR finds challenging about our own kind!! According to a recent study only 4% of organizations rate their internal HR department as "first-rate." Perhaps some of the common characteristics listed below explain why.

Open for discussion. What do you think? Do you disagree?? Are these common characteristics you find exist within the HR community? Why haven't we made the change - the business clearly wants us to???

1. For the last 10 years we have been talking about being a “strategic business partner” and having a “seat at the table.” Enough talk already – if this was actually happening, we wouldn’t need to talk about it anymore!!




2. Our top resume highlight is how we developed a policy manual on how to develop HR policies.




3. We hide behind best-practice, policies and procedures and don’t use our own God-given common sense to provide reasonable solutions that focus on good business results




4. We won't even consider supporting a termination unless there have been 3 verbal warnings, 4 written memos and a suspension on file regardless of the individual situation




5. We work in isolation to come up with all the answers for the business because we know best (Aren't there two sides to partnership???)




6. We like complicated fancy tools and high-powered technological HR solutions that the business doesn’t have time to learn and let's be honest....they don't understand how this actually adds value to their world




7. We keep secrets from the business and buddy-up to defend employees without even recommending that the employee talks to their own Supervisor. This must be where the whole "knowledge is power" thing comes from!




8. We forgot how to use common sense. Sad, but occasionally true!




9. We attend HR “Networking” events that are organized and run by consultants who are there to feed us with their point of view (smart tactic to ensure we are talking about them instead of real business issues)




10. We create 4, ten page documents with 3 appendixes and 6 pie charts to communicate a basic change about employee expense guidelines. It's called simple people - let's try it occasionally!