Staff say HR departments are 'not very useful'

HR professionals, get ready for a rude awakening.

Not only do your firm's employees don't know who you are, they don't think you're doing a great job.

According to a recent survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of People Management, HR departments are consistently rated as "not very useful" by the majority (27%) of staff.

The survey identified eight areas in which employees thought their HR departments were not being useful.

These included shaping the organisation’s culture (27%), ensuring the right mix of talent (25%), developing and training people (25%), rewarding people (27%), managing performance (26%), managing individuals’ wellbeing at work (21%), administering working conditions (pay, benefits, time off etc) (17%) and establishing adequate organisational policies (18%).

To make things worse, the survey added it is not uncommon that employees don't really know what their HR department does.

It found that 58% of the 1,150 employees polled thought the HR department is mainly responsible for grievances.

This was closely followed by recruitment (57%), compliance with employment law (57%), contracts (54%) and disciplinaries (54%) rounding up the top five.

Ranking low on the list were more strategic responsibilities such as career progression (22%) and organisational strategy (14%).

In fact, 5% of those polled had absolutely no clue what the department does.

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The survey also delved into what employees thought of the people running the HR department.

A fifth of staff were of the opinion that the HR director carries out the majority of HR-related work, 15% thought HR is the office manager/administrator's job, 14% thought the line manager is responsible while only 9% felt that the senior manager/leader or HR business partner does most of the HR related work.

Shockingly, the survey also found that almost half of employees have not had any contact with their HR department in the past year.

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