Historic inaction is eroding employees’ faith in their human resources departments, according to a recent survey.
The iHire poll of U.S. workers found that just 25% trusted HR to address toxic behaviour in the workplace. Other results in the same survey suggest they may have good reasons for their doubts, since 65% of those who had reported harmful incidents in the past year to HR, management or supervisors said their organization did nothing to address or mitigate the issues.
Employees are often right to distrust HR, which is inherently an arm of and paid by the employer. HR may present themselves as neutral parties and may act as mediator or moderator between employees, but they are the business itself at the end of the day. Their role is not independent of the company, and their job is not to advocate for employees but to address workplace issues and mitigate risk for the company.
Even where HR has the employee’s rights largely in mind, they often have little power to resist the influence of management which directs the treatment of employees, including terminations, in many companies.
Some HR representatives also do not appreciate that if an employee raises a concern — harassment or discrimination for example — the company must investigate it at least to some extent. Far too often employees confide in HR about serious workplace concerns and HR fails to do anything, believing that as long as the employee has not used the word “complaint” or has not stated that they wish to file a “formal” complaint, then nothing needs to be done. In the legal context, there is little significance between an employee describing an incident of harassment, stating that they are making a “complaint” and verifying that it is a “formal complaint.” In each case, the duty of the company is the same: as soon as they learn about conduct that could be unsafe or harmful, their duty is to look into it further.
We help employees and employee like in navigating these issues. We help employees in clearly stating to the company the issues they are facing. We also help companies respond to, and investigate, concerns raised to HR to mitigate risk.
If you need help navigating the complexities of HR policies and complaint procedures, feel free to contact a member of our team for legal advice tailored to your specific case.
