Bob Goldman
There may be easier jobs than being a human resources professional, but I really don’t know what they could be. Working at the floaty franchise on the Titanic might come close. Selling vegan hot dogs at WrestleMania might come in second, but for day-in, day-out, 9-to-5 doing nothingness, you can’t beat a position in HR.
HR, however, can beat you.
With so little to do, the denizens of the HR swamp make themselves happy by making your work life miserable. That’s why they schedule regular performance reviews — a review of your work product every four hours seems fair to me — and calculate the amount of annual raises to the sixth decimal point — a .000534 percent bump seems fair to me — after which they gather with their colleagues at the Kit Kat Klub to knock back Bahama Mamas and complain about how no one appreciates them.
Despite the manifest advantages of working in HR, the job still does not offer a career path that appeals to many. One aspect of the almost universal disdain for the field is the uncomfortable fact that despite positioning themselves as a defender of employee rights, HR is, was and always will be “a mouthpiece for company leadership.”
This basic business truth is confirmed in “Why More People Want to Work in HR Now,” a recent article by Pavithra Mohan for the Fast Company website.
The explanation for the turnaround is simple: This is not your parents’ HR. The mission of HR today is strategic implementation. The goal is to play a part in the company’s business success as significant as the sharp-pencil gang in accounting.
For example, when tech companies such as Google and Meta soared in the depths of COVID-19, HR was responsible for hiring as many humans as humanly possible. Then, as business prospects soured, it was the HR department that got the highly strategic assignment of firing everyone they had hired a few months earlier.
HR proved up to the task, sending thousands of loyal employees to the unemployment guillotine, creating a Marie Antoinette moment still resonating today.
But all is not eating cake in HR. As much fun as it is firing work friends, the job does have its drawbacks. What could these drawbacks possibly be? Step this way. An HR professional is ready to help you.
Drawback No. 1: Business Card Roulette.
The Human Resources department has a problem deciding what its name is.
Recently, it has become the “People Operations Department,” or the “Employee Experience Department,” or the “Culture and Talent Department,” or the “Employee Management & Care Department,” or the “Human Capital Department.”
Despite what name is on your business card this month, what HR actually does does not change. So you can still expect to be surrounded by horror-movie faces when your co-workers learn you have accepted a position in the “Employee Never-Ending Fun and All-Around Happiness Department” (ENEFAAHD to its friends).
For everyone whose business card does include not a groovy department name fresh from the COO’s last shroom sesh, don’t jump ship. Your current job may be boring, but least you know where you work.
Drawback No. 2: Helping Others.
The new breed of HR people “have that passion for being able to help people grow professionally.” In other words, you have to be willing to help your co-workers rise up in the company to positions where they can fire you.
Unless you are prepared to spend your career helping others succeed in their career, stick to what you do best — giving your work friends terrible advice so they will be fired long before attaining a position where they can fire you.
Drawback No. 3: Being Nice.
Employees in the “Hidden Daggers & Well-Sharpened Sabers Department” are required to do a lot of dirty work for the company. Yet, their demeanor must be nonthreatening at all times, even before and after eviscerating a co-worker for hoarding paper clips.
If you can embrace this level of two-faced behavior, don’t waste it on a career in HR.
Anyone this cruel and unfeeling should be CEO.
If a career in HR still calls to you, despite the drawbacks, don’t worry about getting hired. New HR people are hired by old HR people, and since no one ever hires anyone better than themselves, the HR team is on an irreversible downward spiral toward total mediocrity.
Eventually, standards will drop so low that they will even hire you.
And you can hire me.
That’ll teach the sharp-pencil gang in accounting, no doubt about it.
Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@bgplanning.com.
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