HR - What is it good for? Absolutely nothing

I’m no lawyer but doesn’t this make the HR agency complicit in a fraud? It possibly would if it was against the law.

Under this nefarious practice you can kiss any notion of merit under the Public Service Act (1999) goodbye. The notion of merit per se in a meritocracy such as we run in both the public and private sectors needs revising when HR enters the room.

HR has its own gravity and it drags people down to the lowest common denominator. It is the butterfly-killing jar for our best and brightest minds.

HR people say to me, Malcolm, why do you hate us so much? I don’t, but I take exception when young people come to me straight from school and say they can’t get a job because they don’t have any work experience, or when Mums can’t get back in to the workforce after looking after the kids for three or four years.

I take exception when I read position descriptions and selection criteria that are written by people who clearly have not been in touch with the client or a dictionary.

You’d think that HR would be on the ball regarding bullying, as it’s potentially a criminal act. The following is an old post on OLO from someone who has tangled with HR and paid the price:

To think People Management (that's what they're called in Education, Science and Training) is there to support 'workers' is wrong. They act as a buffer. They are totally pro-management. The union advocate was told that he had no voice.

Bullying public service management lie. And they lie in a language that carries authority because HR are mere stooges of management.

Many years ago I was an acting head of school at RMIT and I had a staff member who was being tormented by a student who had some behavioural issues. I called HR and they said, and I quote, “staff have to put up with the cut and thrust of student problems”.

To be fair, the university solicitor and the registrar weren’t much help either. They adopted the finger in the ears pose (singing “la, la, la”). One Friday afternoon (why do these things always happen on Fridays?) the student attacked the lecturer and had to be pulled off. I called HR and they said “can it wait until Monday?”

I called the police and had the student charged. I then called my lawyer and within 40 minutes had an appointment in his office and went through the OHS Act and charges for harassment and assault.

If in doubt, act.

Ask yourself, how did your nation, my nation, our nation, become like this? Where did we go so wrong that we allowed a profession to rise up like Goya’s painting of “Saturn devouring his son”; a profession that makes decisions based on a person’s ethnicity or age?

HR’s time has come, and gone.