5 myths of employees about HR management (Guest Blog)

Because too many people are involved, many myths and misconceptions can easily find in any organization. These myths can be against the higher authoritative management and can even about the interns. This is why I can say this confidently that many of us may already have run into the same things. Being a former employee and now in the leading HR position in my firm, I have experienced the flavor of both ends of the rope that is why I am in better position to tell you about those five top myths of employees about their HR management.

1.    They set their own Salaries:

One of the biggest myths of employees about their HR management is their paychecks. Many employees believe that HR people set their own salaries and bonuses because this their job and this is for they are hired. The reason behind this is their own salaries are defined by the HR managers that is why they feel that they are the only authority in the company which is by the way not entirely true.

HR management is not the sole authority in any company who can define the paychecks of the employees. All they do is to analyze the entire budgeting and the market value of any workforce to determine the pay scale of any position. Moreover, they are responsible for scheduling the duty time of any employee and defined the pay scale accordingly. The HR has this responsibility of defining the structure and policies of promotion, demotion, lateral transfers and title changes. However, they can never set it for their selves. It is the role of major management to set the pay scale and the policies of promotion to the demotion for the HR level management. This myth that HR people set their own salaries is only a myth and there is nothing true in it.

2.    Our performance review is in their hands:

This is the second biggest myth of employees about the HR management. Employees believe that because their promotion and demotion are in the hands of the HR management that is why they review the performances of the employees. Which is not true. The managers or the team leads to review the performances of the employees who works under them and according to their job descriptions. But managers are also the reason why this myth still exist in the companies. Whenever the managers find your performance is not up to that mark of bonus or promotion or manager cannot promote or give you the bonus due to other reasons, they blame it on the HR. They will never tell you that your performance is not up to that mark or he cannot promote you because of some other reasons. However, the HR managers know this, and they never allowed or even stop the managers from doing such things. Though all of these things never go unnoticed and always take into the attention of the top management. This practice shows that the manager is weak, he cannot handle or face his employees or even give answers to their questions that is why he or she is playing the blame game with them.

3.    The HR managers always carry the secret list of job openings:

You must have heard that talent acquisition department of every company has two job opening lists. One is which they make public, and the other one is which they keep secret. The employees believe that this secret list is only for the friends and families of HR managers and top managers to get them into the organization. This is why now and then you see a new hiring in your department, or your company about no one knows why and when this guy gets hired. Then you suddenly came to know that the newly hired guy is a friend or from the family of someone influential in the company and the whole picture start looking clear to you. Such things also increase the intensity of the myths and make it closer to reality. However, it is still not true.

There is only one list of the job opening that every HR department carries, and they make it public too. However, they sometimes don't make it public because they already shortlist some people whom they can hire whenever they need the people of their skillsets. That is why the HR managers never discard any resume even if they reject any applicant after the interview because no one is useless and they can be needed anytime. That is why reason why you also get the calls for the job interview from the places you interviewed before or even dropped your resume a year ago. This is the reason why these openings never get posted publicly because the HR already have enough applicants from which they can find out the competent employee also help them to get rid of piles of the files.

4.    HR managers always public the complaints:

HR management doesn’t mean that they only have to hire and fire the people and to define their pay scale. There are some other responsibilities too which deals with the internal activities of the office. This also includes the work environment of the office and to deal with all the complaints of the employees. However, most of the employees don't complaint anything to the HR now because of the myth that HR managers always public every complaint.
But the truth is, they are bound to do it. It is in their job description to take every complaint in the notice of the reporting authorities. It is their responsibility to create a consensus before coming up with the solution of any problem. They have to discuss it with the top management because they do nothing without the approval of top management.

5.    HR people are only “Yes sir” of top management:

Just because you find the HR managers following all the orders and the policies of the top management, doesn’t mean that they are the kind of people who cannot say “no” to the top management. Moreover, they also do not follow every order of the top management that is just a myth among the employees about the HR managers.

There always been various things on which the HR managers oppose the orders and the policies of the top management according to their knowledge and expertise in human resource management. They oppose many policies but in the closed doors that is why the employees does not find them opposing the top management decisions openly.

Author Bio:
Ivan Hamlin is a Master in HR from the University of Chicago and has been associated with many companies. Presently he is working with an academic writing company from which students buy dissertation online and this is where he generated the hobby of blogging.