The tolerance of HR BS
Early in my career, I've worked/interned/part timed at a few corporates - both in finance and just general business. In pretty much every case I've had competent, focused managers, and in my interactions with senior management have gotten the same impression of them.
So it's always surprised me that these people don't blink an eye when time and money is blatantly wasted on pointless HR initiatives. Forget the politically correct "inclusion" initiatives - I can see why everyone taking an hour off to listen to an inspirational minority guest speaker is necessary for PR. What really shocks me is the proliferation of mandatory, buzzword filled presentations on waffly topics like "personal development", or the latest theory on how we should all be thinking when problem solving.
Case in point: a few months ago I flew to another city, along with hundreds of other grads across the country, to give presentations on how the company can implement objectives while adhering to this new way of thinking. At least, that's the best way I can articulate it - I still don't really know what I was presenting on, I just spewed buzzwords and apparently did well.
This would have cost thousands, both directly and indirectly through the time lost on actual productive work. I felt sorry for the IB guys with especially huge workloads, having to take time out of their workday to prepare presentations and then a whole day away from the office. Why does nobody from management object to this BS?
Nobody objects because this isn't really an issue. How often are you being flown across the country for HR and team-building initiatives? From what I've seen, these mostly occur after hours, and are for an hour at most at many of the bulge brackets - I never once saw one of the initiatives truly impact any work being done that had a strict deadline, and if it came to that then people would simply skip the event altogether.
Aside from that, these "pointless" initiatives have had a direct and profound impact on the work-life balance of any analyst at a major bank that has started in the past 2 years. I can personally attest to the fact that me, and many of my friends and colleagues had initiatives put into place that ranged from no work after 9PM on Fridays, to protected weekends once a month to rotational and office-swapping programs that allowed us to experience life in a different country for a short period of time. All of these accommodations were made through the coordination and cooperation of HR and our respective teams at each bank.
Admittedly, it's only been twice so far, though the seminars are usually fortnightly and attendance is strictly enforced. I see your point, and those initiatives that have a tangible effect on the office sound good.But every time we have any sort of HR event everyone groans about it and afterwards jokes about how pointless it was.
Spewing "buzzwords" is how you gained speaking practice. Presentation and speaking skills are very valuable.
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