Hey HR professionals! Let’s stir up some discussion with your unpopular opinions and hot takes about working in HR. Here are a few of mine:
1) References are overrated – do you really care if someone is listed as eligible for rehire? 🤷♀️
2) Dress codes are unnecessary – as long as the work is getting done, who cares what someone wears? 🙅♂️
3) Salaried employees should have flexibility with their schedules – why not let them shift their hours as needed? ⏰
What do you think? Share your unpopular opinions and hot takes in the comments below! Let’s learn from each other and find solutions that benefit everyone. 💡 #HRCommunity #WorkplaceCulture
I agree with all your takes – are they unpopular though?
I don’t know that they’re unpopular unless you want to name your industry, perhaps if you’re in banking or something that needs clearance that would be different.
But I’m in manufacturing and construction. I don’t give a single shit about any of this. And I come and go as I please, even my worst boss ever who sucked and I dropped my resignation on him without him seeing it coming, didn’t track my coming and going. They sucked but they still said “We just need the job to get done, it doesn’t need to be between any specific hours.”
My unpopular opinion, after saying that I’ve been in the industry for twenty years now. I don’t care if the guys are wearing shirts or not as long as they aren’t running machinery like that. And I extra don’t care if someone is “smelly”. I’d rather smell Steve’s BO issue than the guy who rolls in here after hotboxing himself in his car chainsmoking roll your owns for fifteen minutes straight. Y’all smell, so stop complaining about the guy who “doesn’t shower”.
You’d have to be silly to put personal references down that wouldn’t speak about you positively. Knowing that references will be cherry picked, what’s the point of calling them?
1.) there is a large portion, maybe not majority, but a lot of HR pros who have no business being in the roles they’re in.
2.) we are also too gatekeepy on who can do HR
3.) yes we’re experienced based, but I never met an HR pro who regretted getting an MBA AFTER getting some experience
I don’t go out of my way to find out the people who are doing things against company policy. If someone brings it to my attention, I will act on it but what I don’t see, I don’t really care about or want to know. I don’t want the extra work, lol.
This is me as an HR of one for 90 people, in the construction industry, and who takes care of everything from safety to every aspect of HR. I. Don’t. Want. To. Know.
That is all.
If you are making your employees come in 5 days a week in an industry that doesn’t demand it (ie not manufacturing, healthcare, or service), you are going to have to be okay with mediocre to subpar talent. Same with trying to nickel and dime pay rates. Basically… you get the talent you deserve.
Not really unpopular or a hot take but stop asking for cover letters yall.
References are a stupidly pointless waste of time.
Oh what a surprise, all 3 of the candidate’s references were all extremely positive. It’s almost as if the candidate provided those references precisely because they knew they’d be positive. How weird! Just like every single other time I’ve ever contacted a reference. Positive again? Wow, crazy!
It is completely indeterminative whether the candidate will be a high performer or not. Can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen hired who had glowing recommendations and then turned out to be a disappointment.
I love how this sub keeps posting threads about hot takes, and all of the takes are about as lukewarm as they get.
I’m ready to get destroyed, but I think remote work is great AFTER you have in-office experience. I hire a lot of 20-somethings and I think their generation is maturing a lot slower and developing more performance anxiety because they aren’t getting the experience of observing others in the workplace.
Oh yeah, references are useless. Unfortunately, the state requires we do reference checks in order to pass our licensing review. We’ve had succesful managers receive bad reference checks from prior bosses. We’ve had someone get stellar reference from their most recent boss and then they flame out and fail at our company.
For your #1 I agree on references. Most people are going to list references who will speak positive of them anyway.
I’m not sure if people see it similarly, but for eligible for rehire my take is if they were a mediocre employee, had a write up or two etc…I’m going to consider them eligible, but that doesn’t mean I would rehire
I think cover letters are a waste of time. Sure I can write one, but I think we both know it’s just a page of kiss-ass.
Agree on references. Waste of time. They depend on company policy more than performance.
Salary employees’ schedules…
I feel everyone is treated non-exempt anyway. Be here 9 to 5! That’s pretty much a schedule.
Having to ask your your boss to arrive late or leave early is non-sensical. Or saying they’ll arrive late and leave late to meet “their hours”. FLSA is not really applied properly in most places.
Managers being vigilant that people spends 40 hours at work a week. Awful.
Salaried staff is paid for a job, whatever hours it takes.
But companies love to ask more from people, the minute they notice someone has some free time, or low workload, they add something else.
I hate calling references. It wastes valuable time and they’re mostly fake anyway.
I’ve been given bad references for candidates a few times and I’m grateful for that but my company demanding two references before hiring a candidate is a load of bullshit and slows down the recruitment process
OMG point number 1. I refuse!
We should do away with interviews. They are statistically the least effective predictor of future performance , they open companies to tons of legal risk, and are generally just a waste of time, money, and energy.
I don’t even understand the purpose of selecting a salaried position if I can’t have a few hours off every once in awhile to go to the doctor. I live in a very blue state so most people have insurance, we all legally have to get PTO – the benefits of salary vs. ever getting overtime pay kind of have to balance out at this point. If I still did shift work I could almost certainly find someone to take the shift, and while I may not be getting paid at least I wouldn’t have any threats hanging over me.
Stop including ridiculous things in compensation consideration to increase the base wage.
“Well… you have a company vehicle that you drive to and from work, so that’s worth $2 per hour, so your $28 an hour is really $30”
Meanwhile, company policy is that you can’t use the vehicle for personal use, so you still have to register and insure your own personal vehicle. Just give me the $2 more per hour, and I’ll leave the company vehicle there.
Possibly an unpopular opinion: Job interviews don’t necessarily tell you much beyond who can give a good first impression and who can’t. Sure, you don’t want someone who behaved inappropriately during the job interview, but also, the best IT experts aren’t particularly known for their social skills but could probably solve your server issue with two clicks of a mouse and a bit of typing.
What you gain from a 3rd, 4th, and 5th+ interview is negligible, and a waste of everyone’s time.