Throughout my career, the one phrase that has always driven me crazy is, “I also do HR.” Normally I hear it uttered by an Accountant or someone in Operations who has to take care of the HR work too, because their company doesn’t employee an HR person.
Unfortunately, that is nothing more than an insult to our profession. Of course I’m tainted, because I work in HR and want to continue to have a job and a role in my organization. But it amazes me when the following happens:
- Companies lay off the HR person. A friend of mine is the sole HR person for her organization (they have several hundred employees). She was informed the other day that she’d have to lay herself off.
- Companies have someone in Accounting or another department handling the HR work, even though that person knows absolutely nothing about HR, the law, etc.
Can a company run under the above-circumstances? Yes, of course they can. And they can also waste a lot of money calling their attorney during that time. But it’s a disservice to those of us who are true practitioners in the “people” field. It’s also a problem for the companies, because more than likely, they are not compliant with something (with that sentence being an understatement). I’ll get off of my pedestal now… At the end of the day, I guess I’d rather be the HR Guy who “also” does stuff for other departments. LOL.