The Sinister Truth About Human Resources

For the sake of employees and businesses alike, the entire HR operating model is in desperate need of an overhaul.

The human resources department is often touted as being there for the employees - a supportive team that has the best interests of the workforce at heart. However, this mainstream perception couldn't be further from the truth. In reality, HR is little more than an insidious extension of the legal team, existing not to help employees, but to protect the company at all costs, even if that means lying, manipulating, and exploiting workers.

The vast majority of HR services that employees believe are beneficial are actually worse than worthless. They are intentionally designed to be deceptive. Take workplace trainings and seminars on topics like diversity, ethics, and preventing harassment. On the surface, these seem aimed at creating an equitable, principled environment. But look closer and you'll see they are primarily about limiting the company's liability should any issues arise. The HR reps running these sessions don't actually care about positively shaping the workplace culture. Their ulterior motive is ensuring employees can't claim ignorance of policies in order to sue if they experience discrimination or misconduct.

This same disingenuous, self-serving motive underpins every aspect of HR's activities. Need to fire a whistleblower who exposed unethical practices? HR will happily engineer their dismissal, concocting a paper trail to make it seem justified, when the real reason is retaliation. A valued employee becomes pregnant? HR has no qualms about finding an excuse to terminate them if keeping them on will be costly or inconvenient for the company. All the while, HR leaders smile, pretend to be allies to workers, and openly tout their organisation's ethical, employee-friendly values. It's all a calculated act.

What enables this reprehensible behaviour is the perverse reality that HR management positions are consistently filled by individuals who possess a unique combination of traits: The capability and willingness to be utterly unscrupulous, deceptive, and devoid of integrity when it benefits the company. HR managers must lack any true moral compass or empathy for others, as treating employees as disposable pawns is fundamental to the role. After all, when ordered to lay off hardworking people or take actions that devastate families all while lying through their teeth, these are the individuals who can do so without blinking. Their only guiding principle is protecting the organisation.

In one recent local example an HR person, on behalf of her employer, instructed work colleagues not to provide the person under threat of dismissal with any support, in fact forbade them from discussing the matter at all. This is far from unusual and serves as a reminder that, regardless of the actions of an employee, the correct procedure must be followed in any disciplinary action for misconduct. In this instance, the employee concerned was the innocent victim of a blatant harassment, but any potential support was removed by HR.

Perhaps the cruellest irony of all is how wildly unqualified HR staff are for many of their core responsibilities. Despite having zero expertise in the actual roles, they are tasked with filling. HR regularly plays the primary decision-maker in the hiring process. How does it make any sense that someone who has never worked as a software developer, nurse, accountant, or any other professional role gets to select who is worthy of that position based on little more than a resume and brief interview? The economic impact of these constant staffing mismatches is likely in the tens of billions annually. And yet, companies not only continue this ludicrous practice, they allow HR to override pushback from hiring managers who actually understand the job's demands.

At its core, HR has become a bloated, redundant bureaucracy, replete with overpaid administrators who contribute no substantive value. Their original purpose, to smoothly handle payroll, benefits, and workplace policy, has been utterly corrupted into an excessive force dedicated to organisational self-preservation at any cost. For the sake of employees and businesses alike, the entire HR operating model is in desperate need of an overhaul. Until then, this department will remain a parasitic drain on society, eroding trust, ethics, and productivity in its wake.

Some potential overhauls that could be suggested for the HR operating model include significantly limiting HR's authority and scope and removing them from hiring decisions for roles they have no direct expertise in. Their involvement should be minimal, limited to an administrative compliance check before a hiring manager's pick is finalised.

HR should be split into two separate functions, one focused solely on payroll, benefits, and workplace policy administration (the legitimate duties they are qualified for), and another handling organisational legal/compliance matters. This compliance arm should be renamed to something like "Corporate Risk Management" to reflect its actual purpose.

Companies need to implement robust checks and balances, oversight, and transparency measures for any HR actions that can negatively impact employees like firings, layoffs, or disciplinary action. etc. Perhaps an independent external committee could review and approve these decisions.

Revamping HR hiring standards and practices to prioritise integrity, ethics, and employee advocacy over organizational obedience is essential. There need to be mechanisms to identify and filter out candidates prone to the manipulative, self-serving behaviour.

HR's mission needs to be redefined and incentive structures need to be introduced to be employee-centric rather than solely focused on protecting the company. Their performance should be measured by employee satisfaction, retention, workplace quality metrics etc.

Disciplinary processes like investigating ethics violations should be moved out of HR's hands to eliminate conflicts of interest. An objective third-party should handle these sensitive matters.

Tough financial penalties for companies caught abusing HR functions for unethical gain like unjustified firings, union-busting, harassment cover-ups etc. need to be implemented. This could help disincentivise such behaviours.

The overarching goal of any overhaul should be to strip away HR's excessive responsibilities and authority, increase accountability and oversight, and re-focus the function on its legitimate purposes in a transparent, ethical manner that truly prioritises employees. Anything less continues to enable toxic, deceptive culture.

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