IS ‘HR’ YOUR FRIEND?
Welcome to this week on Life as I Go. I hope you had a great week? For me, the week went by really fast with hectic work schedules and I have been taking the weekend to get enough rest ahead of the new week.
One of the highlights for me this week was receiving the below report sheet from home 🙂 It was my report sheet from my first primary school back in 1995 when we were living in Kaduna before we moved back to Ibadan. Even though I don’t have any vivid memory of that time, this put a huge smile on my face….
In today’s blog post, I am shining the spotlight on my day job. As you may know, I am an HR professional by day and I have had such an amazing experience working across great organizations over my 7+ years in HR.
When people ask me the question, “how did you choose HR?” (considering that I studied Geography in the University), my default answer is always that ” I didn’t choose HR, HR chose me” and thinking back at it, from day 1, it has felt like a match made in career heaven. So, first things first, shout out to my first HR boss – Chisom O for taking a chance on a scruffy fresh graduate that I was back in 2013 and hiring me as an HR intern at Procter and Gamble.
Now to the gist of the day, I always come across a lot of HR slander on social media platforms – statements like “HR is not your friend”, “HR folks cannot be trusted” etc; These statements usually generalize HR folks as villains in organizations. Whilst I understand that for a lot of people, the perception is as a result of direct or indirect experiences, I also think it is important to shed light on two points I think people sometimes forget in their interaction with the HR folks in their organizations.
- HR is also an employee: From my experience, a lot of dissatisfaction people express about HR folks is rooted in the popular tendency to place people who work in HR on what I think is an unnecessary different pedestal. I agree that some HR folks may present themselves with an air of false superiority or as a saviour of some sort but the fact is that just like you, HR folks are also employees. They were hired and are being paid to do a job just like any other employee ; and even though they are the usually the Harbinger of bad news (e.g. terminations), nothing excludes HR folks from being at the receiving end of these decisions and we are not immune to decisions that impact the overall workforce.
- The Impact of HR in any organization is driven by the business priorities: The primary function of an HR practitioner is to partner with the business to achieve its overall goals and objectives. This includes how the company’s workforce is structured, compensated and motivated. So yes, you want HR to fight all your battles, ensure you get the right salary increases, drive engagement in the workplace, provide training and learning opportunities for you and all the other fancy things we want at work but it is important to remember that the extent to which these can be done is dependent on the value that the business places on its workforce. Putting it simply, if you work in an organization where people are not considered the most valuable assets in the organization, there is little or nothing the HR person can do and vice versa … and always remember the first point ….He/She is also an employee and affected by these decisions.
With these few points of mine, I hope you will think a little different about HR folks in the future 🙂
On a final note, I want to share a song that blessed me so much in the last week. It is titled ‘Graves into Gardens by Elevation Worship’. It was shared with me by a family friend last weekend and I must have listed to it over 100 times since then. It is such an uplifting song and I hope it inspires you like it did for me. Below is a direct link to the song on YouTube. Wishing you a blessed week with much love.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwX1f2gYKZ4
Love,
Nifemi
Koye
Hahaha. I think there’s a “but” before “she is brilliant” because the general wisdom then was that the loud and noisy children were the brilliant ones (i.e. not the calm & easy going ones).
Nifemi Odeyinde
😅😅 Hahahaha. Now I wish I had memories of what I was like back then 😁
Anthony
It’s interesting to see the HR’s perspective. Thanks for sharing. I have a question though.
Is it advisable to have HR know about your social life? Like allow them follow you on social media and the likes?
I am asking this because I know HR will always defend the company and may judge you based on your personal life, like drinking alcohol, partying etc.
What’s your perspective on this?
Nifemi Odeyinde
Haha…very interesting question. I don’t think there is a straightforward answer to this question however I will let you in on my own perspective.
As a personal preference, I try as much as possible not to mix business with pleasure. This implies that I don’t follow or accept requests of co-workers on social media except we have already established a relationship that transcends work. On whatsapp, colleagues/bosses from work (except people who have become my friends) are blocked from viewing my status and I am not apologetic about it. This is my way of setting boundaries; not because I don’t have a good relationship with them but because as much as possible I don’t want to be having a conversation on Monday morning about my Saturday night grind 🙂 Some of my best friends and favorite people in the world today are people I met at work but we first built a relationship outside of social media before we became social media friends.
Should what you do during your personal time be used to determine your effectiveness at work, absolutely not! Could it however influence the perception? – yes it can, we are human & sometimes people find it difficult to separate your personal life from who you are at work.
To sum it up, decide on what you are comfortable with and own it!
Anthony
I like this your perspective, most especially the part on perception.
I once heard a story of a person who posted jokes and memes regularly on WhatsApp. However, this person’s colleague/bosses also had access to everything posted and one day during a one-on-one, he was told he was someone that was not serious with life.
My perspective has always been that people have their own lives outside work and that they should be allowed to live them. Perceptions, however, once formed, are difficult to erase.
Anonymous
Human beings are different likewise company policies differ depending on the industry. For some companies, your personal and social life in public affects your image and consequently the company brand.
For someone like me, my subjective view is that a person’s social life is distinguishable from their work life and vice versa. I take a liberal approach to judging people because I have worked with the best hands whose social life and habits seem reprehensible in a reasonable man’s judgment.
So my take is that work should be separated from personal or social life. Hence, HR and companies alike should desist from enforcing their “marriage” to their employees on social media platforms and if at all they do, it shouldn’t be a yardstick for judging the individual’s work ethics unless it interferes with their performance at work.
Tomiwa
Human beings are different likewise company policies differ depending on the industry. For some companies, your personal and social life in public affects your image and consequently the company brand.
For someone like me, my subjective view is that a person’s social life is distinguishable from their work life and vice versa. I take a liberal approach to judging people because I have worked with the best hands whose social life and habits seem reprehensible in a reasonable man’s judgment.
So my take is that work should be separated from personal or social life. Hence, HR and companies alike should desist from enforcing their “marriage” to their employees on social media platforms and if at all they do, it shouldn’t be a yardstick for judging the individual’s work ethics unless it interferes with their performance at work.
Nifemi Odeyinde
Thank you Tomiwa for your comment. I agree, for positions in which your social media presence has a direct influence on the company brand then it is difficult for the distinction to be made by the individual and their employer. Both parties I believe need to be clear on what is required. My personal preference has always been to have a clear distinction of work from personal life as I think it saves a lot of misunderstanding. Overall, each person will need to review what works for them especially now that social media usage is a big part of our daily lives.