There are some hard truths about being an HR professional. The job is demanding and often unforgiving. If you got into the field to be loved and appreciated, I regret to inform you that you have made a mistake.
That’s not to say that the job is all bad. There will be moments of helping employees and driving business results to keep you inspired. But I’d be lying to you if I said there weren’t also some moments of feeling overworked and underappreciated.
Don’t believe me? Comb the HR themed Reddit threads for a bit and what you’ll find is a series of the aforementioned truths about life in HR. Better yet, don’t comb them, just check out a few of the ones we found most erm… enlightening? Entertaining? Well, whatever they are, check them out.
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HR Truths According To Reddit
One thing to keep in mind before you proceed. While these are real experiences people are having and a somewhat accurate reflection of life in HR, they are not representative of everyone’s HR experience and should be taken in isolation in some ways.
Just like in a dispute between employees, context matters. So if it seems a bit doom and gloom at times, remember, this is not necessarily everyone’s experience. With that said, we’ve tried to keep it to things that emerge in a few weeks worth of Reddit threads. (Learn more about Myth Or Method: Is Trying To Beat The ATS A Waste Of Everyone’s Time?.)
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1. You might have to go it alone
If you’re working for a small business or startup, listen up. The fact is, you may work as part of an understaffed or under prioritized team. If someone leaves, they may not get replaced and it’s going to be you that ends up picking up the slack.
In these cases, it’s going to be the HR tech tools that are your best friends. Don’t know how to work a payroll software or applicant tracking system today? Don’t worry that’s going to change. Let’s just hope you don’t end up being stretched too thin like the author of this post and the folks in the comments. (Learn more about Best Applicant Tracking Systems for 2024.)
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2. You’re going to do some jobs that aren’t yours
As the last post might have suggested to you, there’s likely going to be a lot on your plate, particularly the smaller your HR team is. This means, you’re likely going to get roped into doing some things you didn’t necessarily sign up for. Welcome to HR.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you’re looking to develop a broad repertoire of HR skills, few things will help you do it like a small business/startup sort of environment. But your comfort zone will need to extend well past the job description you were hired under most likely, as this post shows.
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3. Bad leadership will give you headaches
HR’s place in the boardroom is fairly new, and the truth is, many organizations aren’t ready for HR to play a bigger role. If C-suite leadership is toxic, it will undermine much of what you want to achieve. This post is a good example of that and the original poster would do well to not bet on it getting much better.
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4. There are other HR adjacent careers out there for you
Like any other career field, there are people who get into HR with the best of intentions and after a period of time, simply realize that the work isn’t for them. It’s not an indictment of the profession but merely a sign that some people are cut out for the work more than others.
If you find yourself pondering a transition out of HR, don’t worry, you’re not the first and you’re not in danger of your skills being rendered useless. There are a variety of HR adjacent roles, as you’ll see in this thread, that could be options for you to transition into over time.
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5. You have to make the most of your “down” time
It’s peak PTO season, or maybe it’s the holidays, and the temptation to kick your feet up and go on cruise control like a lot of other employees enters your mind. Well, sorry but that’s where it’s going to have to end.
While a little breathing room is welcome for most HR folks, it’s hardly a ticket to easy street. Boredom is simply not an option, but an opportunity to review things that need to be examined, be it your compensation philosophy or performance management approach. You can almost guarantee that something needs a fresh examination as this poster found out from the comments.
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6. Mistakes will be made
It’s a job with a significant cognitive load. One minute you’re being asked to analyze some employee survey data, the next minute you’ve got to be creative in how you approach feedback and 10 minutes later you’re being asked to review a job description. All sides of your brain are going to get some work in HR.
Combine this with long hours and a variety of competing priorities and what you have is a recipe for the occasional mistake like this thread reveals. It’s normal. You’re human. Learn from it and move on.
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7. The job you applied for isn’t necessarily what you’ll be doing
This story is actually fairly common. Companies hire HR folks and they don’t actually have a clear idea of what they want. At first it’s more of a people management function, but within a short space of time your skills are being used to fulfill recruiting or benefit needs.
At some point, you may end up feeling undervalued and stuck like the user in this story.
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8. Managers need HR’s support
The last couple of years have been tough on managers. It’s been a time of changing expectations, work environments, hours, and personnel as companies have taken on independent contractors and remote only workers from around the world.
Managers have had to manage in new ways and for some, dealing with difficult employees is more of a challenge than ever. Situations like this one are a good opportunity for HR to step in and help empower managers to better equip them to deal with the challenges of the modern workplace.
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9. You’re going to have to coach a culture of workload management
You’ve probably heard about a study that reveals what you can see with your eyes when it comes to younger generations and their expectations around work life balance. There’s just one problem, the demands and nature of work in a lot orgs have them feeling like finding that balance is an impossible task.
From cultural perspective, monitoring and engaging employees about their workload helps prevent burnout, but will also clarify priorities and prevent the “always busy” mindset you see here.
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10. Be ready for feedback
Developing cultures of feedback and meeting the need for constructive feedback with employees is a foundational aspect of HR. So feedback is always a good thing right? Well, yes and no.
How feedback is delivered and what it contains matters quite a bit too. Especially the more personal it gets, as you can see in this thread.
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11. Firing someone is stressful, for all involved
HR work will involve conducting the occasional termination. I’ve never met anyone who enjoys doing these, but it’s part of the job. How it’s done is important for maintaining your employer brand and keeping doors open with former employees.
It will also impact how people accept the exit. As you can see in this post, how something like a performance improvement plan or severance package gets communicated along the way also has a significant influence on how a person’s exit will go.
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12. Know when to leave a bad organization
Getting a new job is exciting, but it can quickly go south if the culture of the organization doesn’t align with what you thought you were joining.
Worrying about how you’ll be perceived and what happens to people if you move on isn’t going to make the work environment any better. Knowing when to get out is a valuable skill that will save you some gray hairs and sleepless nights as the poster of this thread is learning.
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13. Be ready to deal with non-office politics as much in office politics
At the time of writing this, we are one week from the U.S. presidential election. In 2024, I have been asked to provide a comment for countless news stories about politics in the workplace and how to handle it from an HR perspective.
The last eight years has largely changed the way people interact and how they talk about politics. Everyone is tapped into each other’s social media and the opinions they express online and it seems to be increasingly common that political beliefs and opinions make their way into the office in one way or another.
This post highlights why you need some policies in place that make it easy for people to understand what you expect from their online behavior and during working hours.
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14. Open enrollment will forever be a thorn in your side
Benefits season leads to a lot of discussions that employees struggle to understand. No matter how many times you explain it, it simply doesn’t matter, you’ll have to explain it again.
For most people benefits are confusing and involve a significant amount of time and money. They see the numbers, they get stressed out and want to read all the fine print. Then, they’re going to ask you to explain the fine print. You’re going to have to be both specific enough to help with some complex questions and patient enough to deal with the same ones time and time again just as this post says. I wish you good luck.
This article originally appeared on PeopleManagingPeople.com and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.
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