Who gets to "HR" HR?
Maybe I'm misguided or biased... but given my observation and experiences, it seems like HR is essentially Gossip Girls x55
It seems like they get a kick out of feeling special or important for being the middleman between interviews/recruitment, or the feeling of playing God on which communication gets through, which question to answer, how late to give you the AMEX code for flights, which interview slot to assign... Of course, there's the whole high school-esque job description of being "in" on all the internal corporate drama, people's personal lives, demanding that you tell her which other firms you are recruiting with, and of course - giving incredibly vague email responses / ghosting on simple logistical questions (like "hey could you please send me that assessment link you forgot to attach?") like they are playing some texting game with dudes for attention.
My question is - who is the HR of HR? Who governs them? Who monitors or evaluates them? It seems like there is little to absolutely 0 balance of power / checks and balances.
Interested to hear thoughts.
Short answer is these high-school mental equivalent HR birds aren't being monitored or held accountable enough, hence the flurry of screw-ups.
On a serious note though, HR seems to be the back / mid office function with the most severe insecurity / ego issues - best diagnosis would be 'BBCD' as South Park puts it.
Agree 100% with OP. HR, for the most part, is a bunch of lazy idiots who never became fully-formed adults and thus, to avoid starving, had to find a job where they could carry their middle-school level skills (gossip, socializing, drama etc) into the adult world for a paycheck.
And to answer OP's question, nobody polices HR. Head of HR is one of the most overpaid, inexpelicably powerful people in every organization I've worked at. Usually reports to COO or even CEO of the organization, and those guys are way too busy doing real shit to put any checks on the abuse of power by HR.
Compliance is just as bad by the way.
There is a sorority at my school where all the girls are NYC banker/corporate execs' daughters and they pipeline into BB HRs like you wouldn't believe.
But anyhow, I agree with what you said and it frightens me how much "power" they have. Makes me wonder what the point of banking is if one will always be at the mercy of a communication major.... scary stuff
The CEO is the one who needs to police HR. Many HR departments are jokes because the CEO is a joke. In fact, having a poor HR organization tells you a lot about what you need to know about the CEO.
Having an HR department that is competent, that actually knows what to screen for when hiring, knows the appropriate comp levels and benefits in the market, who can help the company reduce attrition, etc. is very valuable. Most companies, though, have incompetent CEOs who do not focus on properly hiring, training, and motivating employees, or instilling the right culture, and it's reflected in the HR org. These things should actually be the CEO's most important job (if you do these things right, you're in a great position to succeed as a company), but most do not focus on it, and so big time CEOs often fly around to speak at conferences and go on CNBC, or even buy companies that they don't understand, all to glorify their ego.