Five Most Idiotic HR Policies

Ask a corporate recruiter about the state of the job market, and s/he’ll tell you that certain, key jobs are always hard to fill. A great marketing chief, a terrific CTO or other pivotal ‘value creator’ is not born every minute.

So which companies end up with the talent? The ones that treat people like adults, rather than like irresponsible children. The ones that assume that people are doing what they’re hired to do, without being watched like hawks. The companies that will always get the talent, when competition is stiff, are the ones who don’t allow in idiotic HR practices like the five prize turkeys listed here.

Here’s our roundup of all-time most offensive HR policies. If these sound familiar, you might want to think about whether your talents would be more highly valued elsewhere! For HR folks reviewing the list: think about the loud statements that each of these policies represents to your employees, and ask yourself: is that really what you want to be saying?

1) Forced-Ranking Systems

You know these systems, especially if you’ve ever worked in the technology industry: they’re the ones that force managers to rank their employees in “best to worst” order, to literally rank Susie ahead of Jim and behind Jane in an annual listing. These policies are appalling. Apart from the built-in hypocrisy that has the company telling everyone all year long, “We’re a team! We’re a team!” and then literally pitting each one against the other once a year, there’s a horrifying philosophy associated with a Forced Ranking system: the belief that people can be reduced to one, lowest common denominator (called “worth” or “usefulness” or “indispensability” or something else, although never defined)and listed in rank order on that basis.

What a vile presumption.

If we’re not being viewed by our employers as the complex, creative, insightful beings we believe ourselves (on our good days, anyway) to be, then it’s time for us to find new employers. Forced Ranking systems don’t work, they’re insulting, and the companies that employ them don’t deserve us.

2) Maternity Leave/Disability Policies

As a corporate HR person for over 20 years, there were policies that I hated to enforce, and others that I fought to overturn. Without question, the most absurd benefits-related policy was the one that said to expectant moms, “If you tell us that you’re coming back to work after your maternity leave, your health premiums will be paid for. But if you say that you’re not coming back to work, you’ll have to pay your own premiums.” D-oh! What would you expect a mom (especially a first-time mom) to say? She’ll say she’s coming back to work, ninety-nine percent of the time. After all, no one can say for sure that she’s NOT intending to return to work.

Why enforce a policy that encourages people to be less than truthful? Pay the blinking premiums, ask the employee what her plans are, listen to what she tells you, and proceed accordingly. If you’re going to have to replace her, you don’t want to have to wait until the day she’s due back from maternity leave to learn that - surprise! - she’s decided to stay home with the baby.

You can’t blame a person for waiting until the last minute to make such a decision, when hundreds to thousands of dollars are at stake.

3) No-Comp-Time Policies

Smart companies hire smart people, and they use Comp Time policies to give these folks some time off when they earn it. Comp time is just a way of saying that when you’ve worked a lot of hours (and you’re also a salaried employee, who can’t be paid a dime for that overtime) you should be able to take some time off here and there. Comp time allows people to go see the doctor, go Christmas shopping, or otherwise take care of the business of living without using vacation, sick or personal time.

If your company doesn’t hesitate to let people work on weekends and at night, but won’t hear of a Comp Time policy to even things out, then I’ve got a couple of websites (Monster, HotJobs and CareerBuilder, to name a few) you’ve got to see.

4) Talent Reduction Policies

Of course, there’s no such thing as a Talent Reduction Policy. I made that up. But there are plenty of companies who put ridiculous and draconian restrictions on internal transfers and promotions, to the point that frustrated (but talented) people simply leave the company rather than waiting around for the job they want and are qualified for. If your company requires your manager to sign off on your request for an internal transfer (and you’ve put in your dues: say, one year in the job already), then they’re asking for a Brain Drain and they deserve one. You don’t have to get your manager’s signature to apply for a job across the street, now do you?

5) Cheapskate Expense Reimbursement Policies

Travel is a huge expense for most companies - sometimes it’s second only to payroll when those expense line items are rolled up. But, still. How cheap does a company have to be to take back the Frequent Flyer miles that employees earned with their own dang butts in those uncomfortable airline seats? And how about policies that say that you can take a client to dinner and spend $50, but only spend $15 if you eat by yourself? Yes, it’s important to be cost-conscious when writing a travel policy. But a policy that requires you to get from Pittsburgh to Chicago on a non-direct flight is valuing its cash above your time, your mental energy, and your health. That’s simply wrong.

HR policies say a lot about what kind of company you’re working for. Considering a job offer? Ask for (and actually read) the company’s Employee Handbook, and you’ll learn a ton. Run - don’t walk - away from companies that undervalue their employees every day with bad HR practices. You won’t regret it.

The HR Mission, in Twenty-Five Words or Less

I posted this query on LinkedIn Answers. Here are the answers I got.

In twenty-five words or less, what is the mission of HR, either in your company or in general? Why is it so hard for us to pin down? What is HR called on to do UNIQUELY to help the company thrive? Want to take a stab at wordsmithing it? Thanks!
Liz Ryan

Don Nwose
Pharmaceutical Physician

HR's mission is/or should be to make your current job and company, the best that you have ever had and prepare you for the next best job.
Messages from Don Nwose

Chris Hall
Technologist

Where I work HR seem to be actively doing as little as possible. So much of what they previously did has now been switched over to self 'self service' type systems. Unfortunately it places the onus on everyone else to operate in areas where we don't know the process or legal side of things.

Eric Di Benedetto
Professional angel investor in software start-ups

Build a talent supply chain
Messages from Eric Di Benedetto

Henk-Jan Wesselink
HR Manager Central & Eastern Europe

Liz, very good question. Normally I say (just as generic): helping the business be more successful. But that is not unique. The particularity of HR is that is the only funtion fully dedicated to the company's most valuable resource: employees (duh). (ok, ok, except when you're e.g. in the steel industry). An picture that comes to mind is: "HR = parents of the company". It's a bit lame and needs a lot of work, but look at it: 1. create life (find and attract the right people) 2. nurturing it (training and development) 3. being the judge / setting the rules / disciplining and praising where needed (that is obvious) 4. letting go 5. supply housing, shelter, being in charge of the house etc... Ok, anyone who can make this a bit smoother and crispier? best regards, Henk-Jan Wesselink

Benjamin Teh
Recruitment Manager - ASEAN/ANZ

one word - "retention"

Harish Nair
Founder & Principal Consultant, Ragnar & Rearden [Consultants in Executive Search]

I believe the primary mission of HR is create and sustain an environment that allows individuals and teams to bring their highest talents and skills to their respective jobs. HR has to get the buy in and time and attention from the top management in creating policies, processess and systems which can create an open, non-intimidating and talent rewarding environment. HR then has to implement the same diligently. This will lead to an enviornment which constantly challenges embedded beliefs about the business and its customers, leading to break-thru performance for the company as a whole. HR needs to then sustain and rejuvenate this environment continuously.

Mohammad Usaid Abbasi
Assistant Engineer - ASIC Design @ Virage Logic Corporation (usaidabbasi@hotmail.com www.agloco.com/r/BBFG4464)

Continuously monitors employees brain, give feedback to managers for making work-experience pleasant, suggest new activities to increase the bonding and understanding between various groups and within the groups, clarify the queries regarding employee benefits, give the new-joinees an overview of the work-environment and ethics, do every effort to retain the employees, make appraisal program a transparent one and above all make the employee feel that he/she is at the right place and is very valuable for the company……

James Amoroso
Food Industry Expert with 25 Years' Experience in Company & Industry Analysis and Consumer Sales & Marketing

Identify the needs of the organisation. Define and implement the appropriate organisational structures and culture. Recruit, retain and develop talent that is compatible with those needs, structures and culture. (Mission statements are easy... It's the execution that the tough bit!) Hope that helps.

William Uranga
Senior Director of Staffing

Finding, equipping, and motivating the right people for the right roles at the right time in the organization

Kirti Seth
Chief Operating Officer at Evolv Management Services

For the employee - to create an organisation where they want to be; for the organisation - create an employee pool that has what it takes.

Lakshman Pillai
Chairman, CEO and Chief Architect of Lpcube - a Knowledge Management Company

Best Answers in: Organizational Development (1)... see more, Enterprise Software (1) see less
Find right talent and help them grow while "collectively" developing the business

Chris Aiken
President, Business Development; VP, Project Development for SimpleMosaics.com

HR's job is to find the right talent, help equip that talent to suceed, and to retain that talent. The company's CYA Division.

Sanjeev Gadre
Vice President - Marketing, Subex Azure Ltd.

Best Answers in: Personnel Policies (1)... see more, Telecommunications (1) see less
To recognize that people spend more than 50% of their waking time operating in the "organization environment" and therefore strive to make this time fruitful and enriching both at a professional and personal level.

Damon Billian
Marketing Manager, Community Development

The real answer, at least outside of finding talent, is to protect the company.
Messages from Damon Billian

Asokan KB
Human Resources Generalist

Hi Liz, Good question! The prime objective of the HR is to maximize the return on investment from the organization's human capital and to improve the productive contribution of individuals while simultaneously attempting to attain other societal and individual employee objectives. Ensure priority to initiatives and policies that will enhance the motivation and morale of employees and the cultural sanctity of workplace. This is fundamental to enhance collective effectiveness. While "We fuel the company's growth." is also a good mission statement for HR...I would suggest HR can create any suitable mission statement by keeping the above objectives in mind. After all, the statement should be in good English...with cream. Best regards, Asokan

Matthew Roazen
Chief International Counsel at Alfa Bank

Make sure that when a good employee goes down the elevator tonight, he comes back up the same elevator tomorrow morning.

Tom Bruno-Magdich
Personal and Professional Development Consultant

The mission of HR is to tend to the garden. People turn organisations into living, organic systems. They need regular care and attention to grow.

Jan Witschge
Principal consultant at Logicacmg
Assign (recruit, place, develop, retain, transfer) the right people (talents, knowledge, skills, drive) to the right place (position, role, responsibility, tasks, challenge) at the right time (organisation demand, ambition) to optimally serve the organisation's objectives. All else is derived from that.

Cindy Morton-Ferreira
Owner, Performance Logic

Hi Liz It was interesting reading through the different answers and the views that were expressed. There is a clear difference between Vision and Mission and a mission is a precise description of what an organisation does. I have just come out of doing a strat session with a HR division... and firstly to that HR has become out dated as it is associated in peoples minds as just the place to put a number services... therefore our session led to HR becoming known as Human Capital management - which gives a better understand that the Capital of an organisation is based on their most important assets - the Humans.... We worked on mission and out of that session came a number of key elements: Firstly HC should meet the following services: Have a solid foundation that helps to understand and is responsive to the company's needs and the employee needs. HC is the centre of any organisation and if this department sets it straight- it will filter through to the rest of the company and bring great success. HC should be professional, approachable and provide solutions. Great discussion can lead from this. Thanks Cindy

Martin Focazio
Strategist

The role of HR: Connect people to places they want to be.

Martin Czebotar (1st,last name[at]patmedia.net)
Six Sigma black belt / Quality Manager / Auditor / Polymer Chemist


To assist in training development of employees and keep management from getting sued!


Tina P
Alternative Dispute Resolution Professional

I think Apple's HR motto is just that a motto - it in no way describes the responsibilities of HR. HR is called on to called to do the following uniquely to help the company thrive : 1- serve as gateway to attract, recruit, and retain talent based on the organization's staffing needs 2- ensure that the organize adheres to state and federal workplace regulations 2- protect the company from legal action from external and internal groups (e.g. discrimination claims, ADA claims, OSHA claims) 3- represent the company externally (sometimes with outside counsel) at legal proceedings
Clarification added 13 hours ago:
the list SHOULD read: 1- serve as gateway to attract, recruit, and retain talent based on the organization's staffing needs 2- ensure that the organization adheres to state and federal workplace regulations 3- protect the company from legal action from external and internal groups (e.g. discrimination claims, ADA claims, OSHA claims) 4- represent the company externally (sometimes with outside counsel) at legal proceedings

Karl Laird
Global Learning & Development Specialist

HR provides the leadership that attracts, develops, manages and retains the talent needed to effectively realize a firm's mission and business objectives.

Anand Balaji
Solution Architect at Evolving Systems

To put it very briefly, while the employees are the ones that fuel the company's growth, it is HR's mission to fuel the employee's growth.

Harshwardhan Gupta
Experienced Machine Designer, Writer, Speaker, Mentor

To keep a balance between the employees' greed and the employer's greed! Harshwardhan


Kevin Hill
Corporate Executive/Business Transformation Leader

Service Team for the internal client

Ray Dix
Semi-Retired Former Director

Liz, I think Damon Billian got it right -- recruit and avoid lawsuits. Ray

Jay Hemmady
Technology with a commercial and strategic focus (TopLinked.com)

HR's mission/motto? "We are the people who bring in the people and stand alongside them to make us so successful"

Eileen Bonfiglio

To mitigate risk for the business.

Gemma Toth
Human Resources Professional

HR's mission is to serve as the "bridge of communication" for the organization. It is a bridge between employees and managers, between stakeholders and the company, between lawyers, vendors, insurance carriers, etc. We provide the bridge where the employee enters and exit. If we can make each end of the bridge a positive work and trusting relationship then you create one of the best place to work...a bridge where people don't mind crossing.

eric mixon
product integration & positioning

firstly, and probably more obviously it starts with recruitment, hiring the right people for the right job. then the development of training programs, these can vary from minimal to quite extensive, and of course building and maintaining employee morale and motivation, by far the most complex.

Adam Lamentowicz
GT Consulting-Owner; Petro Carbo Chem-Project Development Manager

HR is about having right people in the right position in the right time in the organization and ensuring they are managed and motivated well... IF HR delivers this, the rest will happen by itself.... almost by itself...;)

Andrew Foote
Snr. Consultant - HR Management Consultancy

Hi Liz, Great question - good opportunity to define HR today. I'd suggest a comprehensive general mission (25 words) to be: 1. Monitor engagement. 2. Know your patient/hospital. 3. Tactical comms. 4. Responsiveness. 5. Spot & retain star talent. 6. C-level credibility. 7. Teach core policy. 8. Anticipate trends. 9. Offer support & facts. 10.Embrace technology.

Mitch Krayton
Digital Wiz, Voice Over Artist, Professional Speaker

In my experience, HR is an administrative function that serves as a gate keeper for all that apply within. As compliance officers they file lots of legal and policy documents. They are a central file for employment records. They write a lot of job descriptions but don't respond to most applicants.They have a lot of meetings, buy lots of training and take a long time to respond to the simplest request. I know I have lost a lot of HR people on this. And there are exceptions I am sure. But its my 25 words (er 72 words) and I am stickin' to it.

You Can't Get There From Here

We had a back-and-forth on my yahoo!group about a billing issue. One of our members is a web designer and she had designed a website for a client. To her chagrin, the client was leaving the designer for someone new, and wanted the source code for the site. The designer was asking our group whether this was her property (in other words, whether she could properly bill the client if they wanted it) or not. She got a bunch of opinions from other members. But here's what I noticed:

Half of the responses came from the legalistic/contractual/factual side of the house. Those folks said things like It depends on your contract language/Precedent holds that/If the code is x, y or z/If your client wants this and not that/etc. The other half of the replies were completely different. They came from the emotional/relationship side of things. They asked questions like How do you want to leave your relationship with this client? What kind of message do you want to send (e.g., Leave me and it'll cost you?). How do you want to feel about this incident and the way you handled it, months or years from now?

TWO POKES AT THE ELEPHANT

These two perspectives on conflict are valuable. We need to have those underpinnings of contractual language, of precedent and commonly accepted industry practices.

But we don't want to jump right to that place. If we do, we immediately define the problem as a problem of Law. This designer was upset. The Law was a place to turn because we get angry when people desert us, understandably. We want to Get Even.

If you take out the legal aspect of the thing and think about the relationship/communication/self-concept piece, you see (as my friend Susan wisely remarked when I told her this story):

"If we keep our customers by virtue of charging them fees to leave us, we will never know which customers would leave us, but for the associated fees. If we allow customers to freely leave us and come back when they choose, we'll learn what we have that's valuable and know why our clients remain so."

THE HR TUG-OF-WAR

In HR, we run into this problem all the time. I'm not talking about clients leaving us - I'm talking about the tug-of-war between the Legal approach and the Relationship one. We jump to Legal in a flash: you broke the policy, that's not how we handle that, a VP will need to approve that, I'm sorry - no exceptions, we must take corrective action. We are masters of the Law, which is odd, given that as HR leaders we are immersed in relationship and communication issues all day long.

Still, we cling to the Legal framework in so, so many instances. We take comfort in the Word, the employee handbook, and refer to it instead of our own good judgment and knowledge of human nature.

Here is an HR example of Law over Culture, and a terribly silly one. In many companies, an expecting mom is asked whether she's planning to return to work after maternity leave, or not. If she says "Yes, I am returning to work" her insurance coverage is paid by the company during maternity leave. If she says "No, I'm not returning" then she terminates when she delivers, or leaves work prior to delivery - and she pays her own insurance premiums after that.

Now, what person with a brain would say "Look, I'm not returning to work after the baby" if she knows that saying those words will cost her five hundred dollars? Would your company hire anyone that stupid? No. So she says "I think I'll be returning, at least I hope so" and then everyone acts as though she's committed a grave sin when she calls to say "Nope, I changed my mind" six weeks after the baby is born.

THOU MOM WITH FORKED TONGUE

When we come from the Legal perspective, we think "She lied to us! How unprofessional." If we have that thought, we have ourselves to blame. She's not unprofessional. Until the moment that mom is due to be at her desk, her decision remains flexible. We created a stupid Law that encourages people to waffle and keep their feelings close to their vests. That's our fault, not theirs. We should pay the insurance during maternity leave whether Mom is staying or leaving, and tell people to share with us their true feelings about staying home or returning to work.

When the Law impels people to be less than forthcoming, it's a bad Law. When we uphold the bad Law and say to our workmates, "These moms going on maternity leave! You can't trust them!" we're part of the problem.

BACK UP THE TRUCK

We need to step away from the Law as HR leaders and remember that our ideal state is not to lead the HR function in an orderly and well-run organization. Our highest ambition is to lead our function in a vibrant and connected organization where all of our employees' energy goes toward attacking business problems and succeeding in the marketplace. The Law will never get us there. Focusing on interactions, relationships and the messages that move throughout our organizations, just may.

And the thing is, the Legal plane and the Cultural plane don't intersect. You can't get there from here. They don't mesh all that easily, either, but when we appeal to fairness and equity, we're harking back to the fundamental reasons the Law was created, if not to its tedious and ever-changing particulars.

If you approach HR issues, people issues, business issues from this perspective: what relationships are at stake here, what elements of trust and accountability that my solution must incorporate? If we look at what we're out to accomplish with a cultural frame of reference, the Law will be served but will not be made paramount. Because it isn't. Not when you're dealing with people on teams and organizational cultures that wither every time the words "That's not our policy" are uttered.

You can keep the Law in mind, but focus on the human beings operating in your midst. You will never build a winning organization by policy-making and -enforcing your way there.

How to Be in HR and Not Talk to People

You can seriously do that - you can be in HR and avoid interaction with people. Tons of people do it.

I went to an American Electronics Association HR conference way back in 1991 or 1992, when the AEA was the shiz and the people there were the heads of HR from IBM, Motorola, etc. I listened and kept my mouth shut. I was the teeny weeny baby insignificant head of HR for U.S. Robotics which had maybe 300 employees at the time.

And these guys said "HR is a Systems job." Over and over they repeated that tiresome crap.

They said it's not about people anymore, except insofar as people are necessary to run our businesses. It's SYSTEMS! Performance management systems. Comp and benefits systems. HRIS systems. You can imagine.

Have we figured out fifteen years later that that is bull? You can have all the systems you want. Culture and communication are the key and I don't mean in some lofty four-color employee handbook kind of way, I mean one-on-one conversations all the time at all levels. Yuck. Isn't that a horrifying thought? You can't do HR without it.

Radio Commentary and Henry Ford

Some months ago I wrote a Business Week Online article about the Ten Best and Ten Worst Corporate Practices. BBC Radio picked up on that and decided to air a series of short clips on these practices, which they titled "Dream Schemes and Dead Ducks." One of the short commentaries is on my website now. So then, NPR wanted to do some HR commentary, and this time the topic was moms opting out of the workforce. That aired last week.

Then the BBC decided they liked the Dead Ducks and Dream Schemes thing, so we are taping more of those. Our local NPR affiliate, KGNU in Boulder, wanted to do HR commentary also so we taped one of those last week, on weight discrimination in employment.

It is easy to see why radio commentary on workplace topics would be in demand. There is so much to talk about! The workplace has become absolutely crazy. HR people are confused - everyone is confused. It's not clear, beyond the strictly legal realm, what employers expect (or should expect) of their employees and vice versa.

When corporate folks and HR leaders email me with questions, every few days, I ask them to think from this perspective. Henry Ford, who perfected the assembly-line process, is long gone. The assembly line is exactly the wrong model to dictate how our workplaces should function today. When we obsesss about face-time, when we count the number of minutes our employees are spending on YouTube per day, we're stuck in an assembly-line mentality. When we can say, as Sun Microsystems, McKesson Health Systems and so many other employers do, "You can work from home, you can go to the mall as far as we're concerned - just get your work done" we've successfully moved past assembly-line thinking. It's not that easy. Your managers can be the big obstacle. Your senior leadership can be an even bigger obstacle.

HR can be the change leader in getting out of 100-year-old, Henry Ford-era thinking.

It doesn't start with proposing a telecommuting program, imho. That's an outcome. It starts with asking leaders, "How do we evaluate our employees' results?"

Breaking Into HR

Here is a new column I wrote with advice for a prospective HR person. It is really tough to get into HR these days. Amazing. But it's also really hard to get a position in HR that is satisfying, where you can make a difference. That's the real challenge. You have to work your way into those roles. If you have to take a really bad HR job to get a foot in the door, I hope you can force yourself to do it, because if you hold out for the perfect HR job, you could wait for years.

HR In Control

There is an aphorism that business types (and others) recite in a wide variety of situations: Control the Controllable. It is a pleasant New-Age-y kind of sentiment. It means, if something isn't under your control, let it go. It's not worth stressing about. It's a good aphorism. I like to remind myself to Control the Controllable, and let the rest slide, every now and then.

But there's another side to the Control the Controllable worldview. If you let the stuff outside of your control unfold as it may, you have to take responsibility for the stuff that you DO control. You can't say "It's not under my control" and exempt yourself from accountability.

This is my problem with the way HR is practiced, so often. We say "I can't control the turnover rate." "I can't control the performance-review process." "I can't control the way managers sweatshop the Call Center folks." I'm only the HR guy, whaddya want from me?

If we're not in control of the systems and processes that direct our employees in their work, who is? A CFO couldn't get away with saying "We are terribly over budget, but you'll have to talk to the line managers about that." The CFO would be gone. But we HR folk get to say "Line managers make these decisions, and goldarnit, they won't listen to me."

The most appalling corporate 'badships' to me fall in the area of employee trust. We just don't trust our employees. Now, if I am shopping at the grocery store and I notice that the shopping cart full of groceries won't make it quite to my car (which is parked halfway between the grocery store and the TJ Maxx next to it) because there's a device on the cart's wheels that stops the cart at a certain point in the parking lot, I can rail and kvetch about that. But I have to allow that the sign on the cart makes some sense: "In order to preserve our low prices, we have installed wheel-stops that keep our carts in the parking lot." They mean that some people might steal the carts otherwise. I can live with that, because grocery stores don't get to choose their customers.

But employers do get to choose whom they hire. Yet we HR practitioners behave as though we have no control of who flounces in the door to work at our companies. "We have to monitor your Internet access at work, because, you know, some miscreant employee may steal time from us." "We have to have video monitors in the break room, because you never know when an employee might steal the coffee bags." Yet everyone on the payroll came in and stays in at our pleasure. Don't the other employees -- the vast majority of employees, who don't rip off the employer in any way -- deserve that we take responsibility for the hiring decisions we make?

We HR people have more power than we think, more influence and more force of will. I wish there were an HR appliance that HR people could purchase and install around our wrists, that would give us a mild shock whenever we utter the words "I'm sorry, that's out of my control." What's out of our control, really, if we lead the organization's HR function? The weather, politics -- to some degree, the behavior of our competitors - that's about it. Shame on us if we don't control the 99% of activity in our environments that we can and should control, influence or disrupt.
"It's out of my control" HR people get to keep their jobs at a high cost: they have to look at themselves in the mirror every morning. How much would an HR job have to pay to surmount that hurdle?