Working at a company with no HR

Savvy_Sue

Charlotte_Ca said:

Regarding your last question, I'm on a path of self reflection many years now and there has been progress. However, one key question to ask is when the environment is not ideal, then why should it be that the individual is the one that has the anxieties? 

Because organisations tend not to have anxieties. Also, things which cause you anxieties may not affect others, but if you were not anxious, others might be.

DullGreyGuy

Charlotte_Ca said:

DullGreyGuy said:

As a day rate contractor I couldn't tell you if most my clients had a HR function or not, Id assume they do but I have nothing to do with them in 99% of engagements. 

One of my near last perm roles was a very large organisation setup with multiple divisions. Just before I left they restructured HR taking it out of the individual divisions and creating a Group wide function that was very heavy on self service with a lot of online forms, user guides and ticketing systems. 

It depends what you want out of a HR department, in my needs its mainly advice on TUPE and succession planning. Recruitement is barely a HR function and in some cases falls under procurement if its temporary resources you are hiring. 

Office size is one consideration, who the senior management are though is also very important. Family businesses or those where the founders are still the board tend to be a bit of a cult of personality and no HR department is going to be able to move the needle on that. A former client was the later, the HR department were trying hard on the Diversity & Inclusion front but the Exec loved heavy drinking and if you weren't willing/able to go to the pub/bar 2-3 times a week your career options were limited. 

One of the other reasons why I think I like it when companies have an HR department is because they can step in if there is a conflict and one of their roles is also to enhance the working experience of the employees. Like do employee engagement surveys, launch social events for the employees etc

Social events are nothing to do with HR.

Stepping in when there is conflict is an unusual action for HR unless you have gotten as far as disciplinary action against employees but have heard of it happening (though never seen it happen in practice). 

Enhancing the work experience depends very much on the company and their plans... not every company wants happy employees with friendly environments, some want a cut throat business environment where the strong are rewarded well and the weak are discarded, where you insource where you add value and outsource everything else. HR may council on these options but ultimately will build the tools to implement the corporate design and culture. 

If you enjoy doing surveys... anyone can do those without needing a HR team

Savvy_Sue

At my last employers, we didn't have an in-house HR department - not really big enough. We had a manager who was the first port of call, but for any actual questions we had an external consultant: I'm not sure anyone was ever very happy when they had to be called in to deal with a dispute. We did surveys in-house, but I'm not convinced anyone took much notice of them when turnover was shockingly high. We organised our own wellbeing and social events. 

Casting my mind back quite a few years to the much larger employers I've worked for, I'm not sure HR had that much impact locally. Yes, they communicated details about the annual Christmas event, and said what you had to do if you didn't want to go (book a day's leave). But managers were expected to organise their own teambuilding and social events, if required. 

DullGreyGuy

Savvy_Sue said:
Yes, they communicated details about the annual Christmas event, and said what you had to do if you didn't want to go (book a day's leave). But managers were expected to organise their own teambuilding and social events, if required. 

Its one of the Executive Assistants that have organised the Xmas do in most the places I've been if there hasn't been a formal events team. Internal comms let people know about it but then IC varies if it's a HR or Marketing function. 

penners324

I far prefer working in small companies. You don't usually end up as just a number. Some have had hr departments, most haven't. Som just use an external consultancy to do that for them.

SensibleSarah

I've only worked in one job where my employer was large enough to have a dedicated HR team in-house. It was a small company when I joined (circa 20 people) but within a couple of years had grown to 150+ so HR became a thing. Before that, one of the directors managed payroll (badly) and the recruitment paperwork etc. I'd been there a couple of months when I realised they had my NI number wrong on my payslip - and checked with several other people who also had this same wrong NI number etc - it was basically a big mess as the person they'd put in charge of it wasn't really a details person  

When they did have a dedicated HR team, I wouldn't say that it made much difference to me on a day to day basis. There were still loads of errors with things like payroll, which they did in-house e.g. they once accidentally paid a freelancer the wages of an employee one month, because they had the same very common surname. They also were terrible for paying holiday owed etc when someone left. I had to chase mine for about 2-3 months after it was due. They handled redundancies badly (but not quite unlawfully), bungled up some disciplinary issues with staff and were party to behaviour (on email) that certainly could have been grounds for constructive dismissal if the employee had wanted to go down that route. These were mainly experienced HR professionals, so certainly should have known better. 

I've had much more positive experiences in smaller companies where there is usually the office manager taking on HR responsibilities, some outsourcing etc. 

Own_Worst_Enermy

They would far rather you were joking.

because someone on here worked for the council many moons ago that is what it is still like or must be, even though many years may have passed.

I didn’t appreciate being called a liar because some poster reckoned they were entirely helpful towards them years ago everyone must experience the same? Really!? 

Charlotte_Ca

I remember when years ago I worked for that start up with 10 ppl, I was enjoying it in the beginning because they were more personal. However, I only worked with them for a week in the office and then we moved to WFH due to COVID. What I didn’t like is that I ended up doing a different role because covid changed everything and I didn’t enjoy what I was doing. The managers were good though creating socials online to stay in touch etc. 

So, now the company I had an interview with and I wrote this post told me that they didn’t accept me for the role. I was expecting that though because honestly, I didn’t have the skills they required. However, they would like to see me again for another position they have. I have started seeing things differently and I’m thinking that they are interested in hiring me since they are offering another role and maybe I should put my fear on the side, because anyway I haven’t had much luck with other positions in other bigger companies. And maybe going into a smaller company would be better for me and a chance to develop some new skills. 

I’ve done some research and the company doesn’t have bad reviews. Well to be fair it only had one review and it was saying the people are friendly, but you cannot progress in the company. Then I looked on posts on LinkedIn other employees put when they were leaving the company and they wrote nice things. One of them they even supported him with training and the other was saying how grateful he was for the colleagues and the company.

It's just what another person said here, that when you are in bigger companies you can move internally, but when you are in a smaller company then things are a bit tight.

It’s good to know though the opinions of different people.

Marcon

Charlotte_Ca said:

It’s good to know though the opinions of different people.

Not if it leads to paralysis by analysis! 

Other people aren't you - so making your own decisions is ultimately the only thing which will ever lead to a happy and successful career. 

Good luck - but don't navel gaze for too long or the opportunities might just pass you by....

Elliott.T123

Charlotte_Ca said:

I remember when years ago I worked for that start up with 10 ppl, I was enjoying it in the beginning because they were more personal. However, I only worked with them for a week in the office and then we moved to WFH due to COVID. What I didn’t like is that I ended up doing a different role because covid changed everything and I didn’t enjoy what I was doing. The managers were good though creating socials online to stay in touch etc. 

So, now the company I had an interview with and I wrote this post told me that they didn’t accept me for the role. I was expecting that though because honestly, I didn’t have the skills they required. However, they would like to see me again for another position they have. I have started seeing things differently and I’m thinking that they are interested in hiring me since they are offering another role and maybe I should put my fear on the side, because anyway I haven’t had much luck with other positions in other bigger companies. And maybe going into a smaller company would be better for me and a chance to develop some new skills. 

I’ve done some research and the company doesn’t have bad reviews. Well to be fair it only had one review and it was saying the people are friendly, but you cannot progress in the company. Then I looked on posts on LinkedIn other employees put when they were leaving the company and they wrote nice things. One of them they even supported him with training and the other was saying how grateful he was for the colleagues and the company.

It's just what another person said here, that when you are in bigger companies you can move internally, but when you are in a smaller company then things are a bit tight.

It’s good to know though the opinions of different people.

I would argue that 95% of the time it doesn't matter what the reviews for a company say, do you think all the people who have an ok but not great experience are going to bother to post? Do you think the people positing on LinkedIn are being genuine or are they playing the business game and keeping their options open?

Do you also think everyone has the same experience working for a company?
Joe Bloggs might be a huge football fan and the fact that the boss and most of his colleagues are too and spend 30 minutes every morning talking about it makes the environment great. However John Smith might absolutely hate the sport and the fact the rest of the team spend 30 minutes every morning chatting about it drives him mad.

Going further do you think everyone's experience is the same even in medium sized companies. The sales team might have the greatest Sales Director ever and everyone loves working there, on the other hand the Finance Manager might be awful to work for and staff turnover is through the roof.