h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The main problem is that HR, Accountants, 'Admin'/Health & Safety departments have slowly made themselves more powerful than they were.

An Chemical engineer I worked with when I started working in about 1994ish and was about 40 then said accountants were the people you sent the invoices to for stuff you had bought to build the plants to keep them in work. They didn't define the budgets etc. Now they define the budgets, tell you who you can buy stuff from, take weeks to authorise new companies to buy stuff from. I worked at a place called A***a-Z**eca (not mentioning any names) and we were given our budgets that we had asked for one year and then some how it was realised that an accountant had screwed up the budgets and money and *OUR* department actually had £800,000 less in the budget than we should have had...so we couldn;t go ahead with a main project...not oh dear we screwed up heres the short fall...nope...you can;t have that money. No idea what happened to the accountant...probably nothing as they didn't technically lose the company money...just meant that we had to make products that cost a few thousand pounds per kilo slower and less efficiently...

I also worked at a place that processed milk...like a Dairy...not sure what their crest was...and *I* a mere chemical engineer wrote a computer programme (self-taught) to process budgets for utilities for the following year because the accountancy department always got it wrong and none of them knew anything about the site to actually get the correct information to process...muppets...oh and then they made me redundant...which actually wasn't a bad thing.

Oh yes and their HR manager lied to me regarding something before I'd even got my job...it was hell working at a place where I was the most highly qualified person and everyone else running the place were morons.

I also have a beef with Health & Safety Departments giving edicts on the most pathetic of things and going OTT on 'safety' when I carry out risk assessments on designs that could blow up and kill people. Best one of theirs was the opening of a new building champers provided in glasses...risk assessment said no one must put glass on the floor in the seated area for the presentation in case a glass got knocked over and broke...I'm sure they considered asking for the champagne to be put into those baby plastic mugs with the top cover on them with the holes to suck the liquid through.

Of course because we weren't the 'Health and Safety Department' and hadn't gone through the training courses to be in that department their word was law in many areas...even though our knowledge of risk etc was superior to them...muppets the lot of 'em.

Of course all the people with the power: HR, Accountants, 'Admin'/Health & Safety departments do not actually create anything to earn money for the companies they are 'non-fee' earners in contracting parlance...leeches...I sometimes wish all the engineers/scientists etc who create the products and systems and processes that make money would sit back and say to these little Hitlers: OK, *YOU* make this company some money...go on...yes you...oh you can't can you because you haven;t got the skills...so please duck off and leave us alone.

<The main problem is that HR, Accountants, 'Admin'/Health & Safety departments have slowly made themselves more powerful than they were.>
This has come about despite the fact that many of them have huge gaps in their CV's.

The gaps are between their ears.

As a Trade Union official, for whom "InHuman Resources" are often the bane of my working life it feels strange that I am about to mount a sort of defence of them.

It may well be that Royal Mail has a massively different approach than any other business in terms of management but I have seen in the context of my office, and many others what can happenen where managers are allowed to rule as absolutly despots.

You get "blue eyed boy syndrome", Napoleonic empires, and bullying and lots of it.

For all the myriad faults that HR can have, consistent, fair and transparent ways of dealing with staff in a working environment *are* important and do need to happen. And whilst shop stewards like myself can police these things unless there is some kind of formal frame work and authority I'd say it would be virtually impossible for an undertaking of any size to be able to do anything about these things without people who's job it was to do the HR-y type stuff.

I have no doubt there are many egregious failures of common sense and reason form HR (after all I wouldn't be needed in my workplace if that wasn't the case!) but some of what they do is necessary and proper.

FB

FB, those tiny Napoleons who build their own little management empire in the firm...yup. Hands across the Channel.

Depending upon the hat that he is wearing a shop steward may fall in the HR category.

"The worst thing about this supposed equal fair way of doing interviews with set questions means (a) you don't actually find out truly how a person does their job or how good they are (b) you can miss skills that fall outside those questions..."

Despite all of my complaints against HR, I've never been told that I have to ask all of the candidates exactly the same questions, just that the same areas have to be covered for all candidates in the interests of effectiveness as well as fairness. These questions should be based on a person specification, against which the candidates should be judged and ranked.

It's much more about 'set areas' than set questions. For example, when I've chaired panels I've given whole areas out to the best person to ask that particular question. They'll probably then have a standard question to start, but then will use different questions to follow up, based upon the answers and the experience of each candidate. For one interview panel I chaired, I covered the same areas with each candidate, but focused more on why candidate A wanted the job (given their greater experience), what candidate B's current job involved exactly (as it was in another sector) etc etc etc.

But I can see how this format can encourage lazy and ineffective interviewing if there isn't sufficient personalisation within the overall structure. My experience is that people are put onto panels (and sometimes chairing them) with little training, and some take little care and preparation given the importance of what's at stake....

Otto, that´s the point. Doesn´t apply to positions higher on the totem pole, but to the rank and file. Intervieved by a "just go through the list" chairfarter, Leonardo DaVinci (greatest genius ever IMO) wouldn´t have got that job on the assembly line - he was lefthanded.

I doubt if Leonardo ever presented himself for interview or for that matter was concerned about gaps in his CV.

And he'd certainly not be the right kind of person for an assembly line job anyway!

Leonardo was taken on as an apprentice at 14 years of age and enjoyed the benefits of vocational education and training.
In todays world he would have been expected to undergo four more years of formal education with the likelihood of a 2/3 more years at University. If in the end he found a job he would be bound up in HR mumbo jumbo and present day employment legislation.

FB, I do recognise what you sayt there about HR, proceses and standards. When I was kicked out by the Nice Horsey, I was treated fairly only because of the HR processes. Of course the processes didn't mean I was treated kindly or with any particular respect. But they were fair,so far as they went.

Kindness, understanding and respect could fill the gap in any CV.

*should* not *could*.

businesses unfortunately often dont give a toss about those things. If they did, I'd have a fantastic job and I'd be good at it!

Hmmm, I'm currently applying for a job in education - it lists one year of experience working with children as essential, but *enjoying* working with children is merely desirable...

"You don´t have to enjoy it, just nazi the wee monsters"? Brave new world.