What's you firm's worst "HR initiative"

Ours is spending £15K a year on "free" fruit that no one ate.

 

I quite enjoyed the 360-performance review process - just to see the juniors with no understanding of the command structure view it as a conduit to be open and honest in their assessment of the partners.  HEH.

I love our daily fruit bowls. And masses of crisps, bars, nuts, chocolate, random babybels, yogurts and pop. And the free magazines (I prefer the Grazia weeks to the New Statesman weeks though tbh). And yoga, pilates, zumba, running and body camp classes. And wine tasting evenings (*gives side eye*). I do genuinely like the perks. But then they have to make up for the actual work & general office vibe though...

I know what I think HR's worst initiative is.

 

 

Undervaluing and underpaying the role....

 

Its a self fulfilling prophecy that if you dont believe HR is valuable and therefore underpay and under resource....then it wont add value!

 

Every organisation says their people are their biggest asset, very very very few follow this mantra in their actions. LAw firms are particularly bad at this

 

It should be a very important job  and it should add enormous value 

360 reviews are ok if you actually want anything other than your arse kissed and to be told that you are doing everything excellently.  A lot of the time, partners forget how frustrating it is to be junior and to be given work beyond your experience with little or no supervision or support. 

My last firm had the most patronising and pathetic one - looking for innovation ideas, they thought it was a good idea for us all to come into work and find a white firm branded baseball cap on our desks with “thinking cap” written on front of it. I still have mine as evidence of this total ass-hattery (god-awful pun intended). Dicks.

dunno about worst

but the best are the free lunches

there is always a random interesting selection in the communal fridges, homemade sandwiches and salads etc. sometimes a bit hit and miss. you have to ignore the labels

Trying to get involved with people.

HR should sit quietly in the corner/ background, until they need to handle someone's firing and/ or cover someone's arse.

No one wants to know about them the rest of the time. And rightly so.