Agggghhhhhh. Online competency self assessments.....

[Drago]

You gotta love HR. People who have no conception of doing a job themselves deciding which candidate is best suited to do the job.

 

[gbb]

I know I've said it before, but the best bit about working for a small company is no HR shoot. One of the Directors deals with the employment law and discipline stuff, other than that there is no need for systems and metrics and clever assessments. Everyone knows if you are doing a decent job, everyone knows if you are capable of doing more, everyone knows if you need specific training and help. Most importantly, the owners know your worth.

And the flip side is...I work for a fairly large company, very corporate, very very HR, H&S, environment, etc etc etc...it's ALL bull, to cover their asses or to impress customers. We're assessed and trained in pointless exercises, all it does is fog our day with mind numbing pointless information...and as soon as the paperwork is ticked and signed, we all go off and do what we do, not what we've just been 'taught'

My manager has been in the industry for maybe 30 years, I've been in it 40, the white noise' around everything we do now makes it impossible. They've become so focused on a tick box culture....they've forgotten how to do the actual job that creates the revenue.

Never seen it so bad.

 

[Fab Foodie]

And the flip side is...I work for a fairly large company, very corporate, very very HR, H&S, environment, etc etc etc...it's ALL bull, to cover their asses or to impress customers. We're assessed and trained in pointless exercises, all it does is fog our day with mind numbing pointless information...and as soon as the paperwork is ticked and signed, we all go off and do what we do, not what we've just been 'taught'

My manager has been in the industry for maybe 30 years, I've been in it 40, the white noise' around everything we do now makes it impossible. They've become so focused on a tick box culture....they've forgotten how to do the actual job that creates the revenue.

Never seen it so bad.

Ditto the above.

 

[gbb]

You gotta love HR. People who have no conception of doing a job themselves deciding which candidate is best suited to do the job.

The laugh is, 95% of our workforce is East European, many, most, have very limited English, although a good few obviously do have very good language skills. When HR post vacancies on the board, the wording is soooooo heavy...I struggle to interpret it myself . How in God's name the other 95% of us interpret it, I have no idea.

 

[stalagmike]

And the flip side is...I work for a fairly large company, very corporate, very very HR, H&S, environment, etc etc etc...it's ALL bull, to cover their asses or to impress customers. We're assessed and trained in pointless exercises, all it does is fog our day with mind numbing pointless information...and as soon as the paperwork is ticked and signed, we all go off and do what we do, not what we've just been 'taught'

My manager has been in the industry for maybe 30 years, I've been in it 40, the white noise' around everything we do now makes it impossible. They've become so focused on a tick box culture....they've forgotten how to do the actual job that creates the revenue.

Never seen it so bad.

Sadly the same malaise is affecting education too. Why so many teachers just hate the job now for what it has become and are leaving in droves.

 

[Drago]

Many years ago I was applying for a specialist post in the dibble. The interview clearly hadn't gone well and the lead interviewer seemed not to like me. I guessed by then I'd already blown it, so I lost my rag. I leaned across the desk and placed a Mondanock PR24NX extendable side handled baton in their hand, and said "show me the low profile carry." I then asked, "tell me about the conflict resolution model." They spluttered a bit. I then asked, "what section of PACE gives me my powers to use force when exercising my powers under the other sections of PACE." A lots of "erms and ahs" were forthcoming by way of a reply. "No? then whoa re you to question me over any aspect of operational police work when you have no conception or understanding whatsoever of even the most basic, fundamental knowledge required. I should be sat on that side of the desk quizzing you."

I didn't get the job. They chose another candidate, who not long afterwards prove they were indeed the number one choice by getting caught shoplifting, and subsequently sacked, and proved that HR couldn't successfully find a garibaldi on a tea break.

Several bits of research have shown the interview process to have a less than 1 in 4 success rate of selecting the best suited candidate for any role. That and my experiences prove that that whole ridiculous system exists only to give HR "professionals" jobs. After all, those who can't themselves, instruct others.

 

[Rezillo]

Some years ago, my then line manager, was subject to a "360 degree appraisal" by HR, as were all managers at his level. He wasn't without his flaws but he was popular with us and our team worked well together.

The process involved him being confronted with open and honest views on him by everyone that he worked with on a day to day basis. The idea pitched to us was that it independently demonstrated his strengths and weaknesses to him, or some such codswallop.

We were separately briefed by HR to be completely open about his strengths and weaknesses in a questionnaire that we all had to fill in. This openness by us was stressed a great deal, as was the promise that comments would be anonymised so that we should not worry about any repercussions from negative answers.

We dutifully filled in the questionnaires, which gave equal space to his positive and negative aspects. Most of the negative stuff was fairly trivial but it was not the kind of thing one would normally say to someone's face. None of us is perfect after all.

It turned out that our comments were only anonymised to the extent that our names were removed from the transcripts. They were quoted to the poor manager verbatim, who knew us all very well. He knew exactly from the sentence styles who had written what and was extremely upset by what had been said, despite there being a lot of praise.

The exercise poisoned relationships between him and the team for months and completely demoralised him because he dwelled on the negative comments. As an exercise across the organisation it was a disaster - this scenario was repeated right across middle management.

I could hardly believe that somewhere there was someone who thought the process was a good idea and managed to sell it to our organisation - it cost thousands and wrecked morale for a long time.

 

[Oxo]

The exercise poisoned relationships between him and the team for months and completely demoralised him because he dwelled on the negative comments. As an exercise across the organisation it was a disaster - this scenario was repeated right across middle management.

I think that is a common scenario, no matter how many positive comments are made people focus on the negative ones, no matter how few they be.