My biggest HR pet peeve was when someone would walk into my office and announce, “I have a question.”
Oh yeah? Great. Let me stop what I’m doing and address your very important question that can probably be answered by you if you took the initiative and used some common sense.
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Now I always felt like customer service was important until, one day, my CIO told me that it was a fallacy to believe that IT and HR leaders were in the business of customer service.
He said, “You don’t work in a bank. Your customer isn’t the employee. Learn to close your door. Make people schedule appointments with you.”
He was basically telling me that my client is the business — and I wasn’t doing myself or my career any favors by being so approachable and enabling employees to come to me with every question or issue.
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So I have three questions.
- Is customer service important to HR?
- Who is the client for executive-level HR leaders?
- What’s your biggest pet peeve about the way employees approach you?
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HR, just like IT _is_ customer service for the internal organization. HR and IT are part of business operation and I can tell you that in every organization I was part of, we hammered into the heads of our operations team that they are to SERVE the organization.
HR, IT, operations, marketing, finance should never have doors closed to their offices. We depend on other areas of the business to feed us, pay our salaries, increase value of our equity, therefore we are to serve the rest of the organization just like they must serve the external customers.
Hate to say it, but your CIO was one misguided person!
I wanted to add, if people come with “stupid questions”, that just means your team has not spent enough time educating. Anytime someone in any of the companies I have ever worked for came with a “stupid questions”, it was a red flag for us, that we are doing a poor job communicating what people need to know.
I think it depends on the business. One big box I worked for literally expected my door to be open at all times for employees(um.. private conversations, confidential work? – but ee’s complained to “higher ups” if the door was closed, and I was in there… ~sigh~ ) My current employer (and others in the past) expects me to be more “dark side” – the driving force, not the touchy-feely handholder.
My personality is more dark side than customer service to the employes. I figure that’s what I have an HR assistant for!
Executive level-HR – the client/customer is definitely the company. Lower level, its company specific based on the culture IME.
And my pet peeve has always been… “Are you busy?” – is there ever a right answer to that question?
For non senior/management level HR and IT, customer service is very important. If you provide crappy service when someone comes to you with a need it gives them a bad taste for HR/IT and they are less likely to seek your support in the future. My husband works in IT, he’s a manager, he says the help desk provides customer service not mangement so dont call him if your computer doesn’t work.
The client for exec level is largely the business if the company is large. I dont want my SVP of HR worrying about what Suzy Q CSR is feeling; I want her worrying about hiring metrics and retention and costs per employee.
My biggest pet peeve is employees leaving me a voicemail. I hate hate hate my office phone, I wish it would burn and thus I ignore it most of the time unless its my boss calling. Use email or come see me on your way outside.
(Sorry, had a small rant there; I’m ok now)
Oooh I have strong views on this one. The internal customer is the biggest crock of s**t that has ever wormed its way into business. I serve you, you serve me, he serves her, she serves him. We get so tied up in serving eachother that we forget why the hell we are there in the first place.
My team do not provide a service to our business. We work as a team with people within the organisation. We provide technical expertise and skills. We don’t have to measure some nefarious KPI in order to prove our worth. People know our worth and we demonstrate it daily. Is there providing a service? No its working together.
Our customer is the same as everyone else’s customer in the business. The one that pays us.
I think too many make the mistake of equating customer service with doing a good job.
When the ‘customer’ can’t deal with anything other than what they want to hear, you’re doomed. So – is ‘customer service’ imporant? Only if your boss thinks it is. And customer service really means just giving them exactly what they want – whether it makes sense or not; whether it’s right or not.
BUT – is doing your best work when no one is “watching’ and on behalf of some dimwitted dolt who doesn’t really deserve it important? If we want to maintain any basic level of professional integrity – absolutely.
Folks say they want to go into HR because they want to “work with and/or help people”. I use this statement as a litmus test for HR wannabes. If they utter those words I know that either a) they haven’t actually worked with or “helped people” to know how hard, tedious, thankless and borderline self abusive this can be or b) they HAVE and are lying.
Pet peeves:
“Oh, sorry about interrupting you” No you’re not.
“I just have a very quick question” No you don’t; you should have asked weeks ago and now it will take 2 hours an investigation and several follow up meetings and to sort this all out.
“Can I tell you something completely anonymously?” Sure. I don’t see you standing there and none of this is happening – especially after the summons is served.
“My annual evaluation is coming up this afternoon – actually in the next 30 minutes – and I’m worried that it isn’t going to be favorable. Can you help me prepare?” You bet! First – take out a pencil and list 10 reasons why you couldn’t do your job and why everyone is out to get you; next – and maybe you’ve already done this – call your doctor and have a note faxed here right away that says you need to be off work on FMLA for an unspecified disorder that precludes your discussing anything you consider ‘uncomfortable’ without your counselor present; finally – go to salary.com, insert a description that doesn’t remotely match reality, do some of your own “on line research” about employment law and use this as your argument for why you aren’t being paid enough.
“Are you a notary?” I’m tempted to just say yes and collect $10….
“If you feel uncomfortable with this, just say so and I won’t mention it again, but… little Johnnie is off from school starting next week for the summer and really could use a job and, well, I’m SURE you get ALOT of these requests, ha ha ha… and yeah I know you laid some staff off recently, BUT……It wouldn’t have to pay much – I mean not much more than $35 an hour especially since Johnnie hasn’t actually worked anywhere else before – unless you count babysitting or mowing lawns… and please don’t let the fact that aside from being my son, he’s best friend with our board member’s kid influence you in any way whatsoever! Really. I’m just asking…” Ok – forget what I just said about professional integrity above…..
Oh man! You got me all riled up on this one!! I have been over this a thousand times! My take:
There is a huge difference between providing “customer service” and holding someone’s hand because they can’t figure sh!@ out or they are too lazy to look a little further to get the answer. HR’s customer is the company. Period. Not the ee or the ee’s bff who wants to apply. HR provides great CS when they contribute to the business strategy or business decisions. Expecting HR to be approachable and accessible to every whim that ee’s might have is Old School and doesn’t bring any true value to the bottom line.
Okay– I’m totally with ya on the “I have a question” approach. It takes every fiber of my being not to go Tasmanian devil on someone when they come to me with that opening line…
Admission 1: I should stop using the I have a question approach. Although the alternative seems less palatable “Stop whatever you think is important and focus on me… you know, the think that is actually important.”
Admission 2: I am not in HR, but I have an opinion anyway =) Our work serves multiple stakeholders (notice I did not say shareholders). All of us serve, external customers, shareholders and other employees; the only difference is the extent to which we have contact with them. We abso-friggin-loutely have to satisfy the people to whom we are responsible. If you are “backend” or “darkside (lol)” HR, then your primary customer is not the employee, rather management, or executive decision-makers. However, you serve employees by enhancing decisions that lead to them still having jobs.
So, your CIO was both wrong and right. Mostly, he had a specific point to make about where you, specifically should focus.
Here’s the shizzy on customer service: at the end of the day there is a cost associated with it. It takes time to provide customer service and it may not be the best use of your time for the company. It’s a trade off. If a company expects HR to be an employee information help desk, then what are they willing to give up? The odds of a successful negligence lawsuit for someone in HR not immediately answering a question regarding whether or not in order for pants to be classified capris rather than shorts is that capris start 2 inches below the knee, is miniscule. The company’s exposure to a successful EEO lawsuit because you spent your time answering every inane question instead of managing ER issues as they happen, much larger.
Our customer is the best interests of the company. If the company says otherwise, ask them when they will bear the additional costs to add heads to support the questions or if they really want you spending time where it most effects the share holders wallets?
Ok, how many of you have endured the training video “The Guest”?
In my opinion, the question comes down to: What are the most valuable ways for you to be spending your time, in terms of the major results you are there to achieve? That’s something that you and your manager and your manager’s manager, all the way on up, should be in alignment on. And then once you’re all in alignment, the answer to the question posed in this post will naturally stem from there.
So if your major objectives are to provide an accessible day-to-day presence for employee questions, then yes, be accessible and answer those questions quickly. (Although you still may want to have people funnel them through email, as it’s often a lot more efficient.) But, on the other hand, if your major objectives are something totally different, then you need to ensure that you protect blocks of your time to focus on those. And that may mean closing your door, asking people who interrupt you to email you or consult the employee handbook themselves, or whatever. It’s a fundamental question about what your role is intended to achieve.
@Apollo I’m not sure I agree with you. I guess my first question is this — how do you define HR? If your HR team is there to provide information and help employees, you’re employing therapists and teachers. I’d rather outsource that kind of stuff and have HR focus on core competencies: key administrative pieces are a portion of the work, yes, but what about recruiting and strategic planning?
@tlcolson “Are you busy?” I have so many answers for that. PS – I know what you mean about being a Human Resources Assistant because I’ve done that work.
Now I’d rather take the headcount & the budget and hire another recruiter or trainer and then ask employees to be a little more resourceful. There is no reason why EE’s should come to HR to have the vacation policy explained. Do. The. Math. Yourself. (Or write a letter to the SVP of HR and lobby for vacation policy reform or whatnot.)
@adowling I hate voicemail, too. What part of technological process don’t you understand? PS — What if coming to HR was not an option but a requirement? That’s the problem with many IT and HR departments. Enforcement.
@TheHRD That was the point of the CIO at my former company. Carried forward in other companies, too. That point of view really liberated me.
@I, Anonymous OMG, why aren’t you blogging? These are all perfect. You’re right, though — customer service doesn’t always mean satisfaction. I just don’t know how peers & colleagues are supposed to have a client/customer relationship.
@HR Chick Thank you. When someone tells me they have a question, I want to tell them, “You can only ask me the question if it’s related to politics, art, or sex. Go.”
@George Admission #1: I totally hate the words stakeholder and shareholder.
@HRPuf Our customer is the best interests of the company. Bam. That’s it.
@Alison I think you’re right that this question comes down to role clarity. [HR, for all the job descriptions we write, cannot seem to achieve role clarity for its own existence!!]
@HRU I’m still looking for ‘The Guest.’
Wow, I am always being interrupted, in fact an ee calls the HR director today to ask about their medical card. Gosh, like we don’t have an admin person for that????
Employees are more eager to get out of work and ask silly or stupid questions because they are a.) lazy, b.) just realized that the loan people need the verification by 3:00 pm and its 2:30 pm. c.) just feel that you aren’t busy enough to look up their 401(k) balance because their internet at home is not working, or d.) see answer a.
I see interruptions everyday, in fact I think they think that paychecks are magically delivered because they washed there’s last night…um direct deposit is a great thing, ya think!!!!! ….and that the handbook is open for interpretation because they forgot that working the day after a holiday is required to recieve holiday pay and NO, a doctors note that you had a hangnail removed is not gonna get you paid. Again see answer a.
Overall HR lets itself be interrupted because managers and supervisors do not make themselves avalilable to answer questions because it is to time consuming and HR has nothing to do anyways! (quoted from a former plant manager).
I have to go, someone just emailed me a question
)
As a benefits person in a Shared Services Group, my expectation is that we will get employee questions. It’s part of what I do. I have no problem answering questions about benefits problems, leave of absence, enrollment questions, etc. It always amazes me when someone e-mails the VP about why they didn’t get their cards.
Of course, I get my fair share of really stupid questions. My favorite is when I do a new hire orientation and spend the good portion on our online enrollment system and the fact that we have no forms. It always makes me happy when a new hire will call an hour after said orientation and will wonder why he didn’t get any forms. Gee, thanks for listening to me, that’s an hour of my life I can never get back.
This conversation has been a real eye-opener for me. I used to be the HR VP for a much, much larger company than I work at now, and I built all their training, marketing, and HR processes and teams from scratch. It was a very fulfilling job that required a lot of travel, so when I had a baby I left that company. In the last year since I’ve been at much smaller company, I’ve had a really hard time getting things done. In retrospect, it’s because I’ve allowed myself to become “customer service” here. The HR staff is very small, and then we cut someone who had been the main generalist, so I was the only HR expert around. I thought I was being a team player, digging into the details, leadership by example, etc. But now I realize there has been a real cost – people at new small company don’t respect my time or my mind and I’m not doing work worth my paycheck. I’m frustrated and it’s getting harder not to show that to employees and managers.
Time to get serious about prioritizing and start saying NO again.
Thanks Laurie and commenters! Y’all rocked my world today.
Great thread. I think alot depends on the org size, as many have pointed out. I am the HR Exec at my job, but then again, I am the entire HR dept! I do think the HR *function* is to acheive the delicate balance of taking care of employee needs and the business need. In larger organizations, clearly those duties are distributed so that HR Executive’s focus is more strategic. But even so, employee needs must be addressed and that is ultimately the responsibility of the HR Exec.
Personally, I HATE HATE HATE the “are you busy” question. No, dumbass, I’m just sittin’ here waiting on YOU. MY pet peeve is the employee who absolutely can’t encounter me without the sudden epiphany that they HAVE to ask me a question. It can be in the rest room, the coke machine, or on my way to the car in the afternoon!!!! And God help the poor soul who approaches me with a stupid question before 10 am. I am NOT a morning person and I don’t fake niceness well before mid-morning. (Because really, we’re all faking it sometimes!)
@Susanne I love how you’re the entire HR function. That’s awesome. Is it the HR function’s job to address employees’ needs or is it the job of their managers? Or maybe those needs are overstated? I totally get this approach because it’s the backbone of HR, but it’s a tough balance. This is why we have the “is HR in my corner or not?” discussion. (PS – Love the use of dumbass. My favorite, favorite, favorite insult at work!)
@Franny Wait, I have a question. How do I calculate my vacation benefits? Where can I find out if my wife’s bunion surgery is covered? Can you explain how FMLA works?
@BeneGirl I love it. This online system is almost too much for some of these awesome new hires. What’s this about hiring the best & the brightest talent out there?
@ATCnow I always love to ask, “Can we get some perspective?” Also, we outsourced our employment verification process at my past two companies and it saved my freakin life. No, I cannot help you with your loan verification. Go help yourself by following instructions that are clearly posted, in your new hire kit, and on the company intranet site. Sheesh.
Gosh….all this time I’ve had it all wrong, I bought into the notion that “My customers are my employees”…..boy was I off the mark! It just so happened that I had to move my office and all the employees files to a more secure office, then the company was mandated to install security measures throughout the building which meant that access to the HR office became “difficult”, I was all up in arms about the employees not having access to me because they were my customers and instead what sort of happened without me realizing it was that I had large blocks of time to do the things I never had the time to do before. The employees became resourceful in that they started asking their supervisors the simple questions or got it from the Handbook or whatever…they weren’t coming to me anymore and it was great!…..then this topic shed the rest of the light and now I’m free!!!!! Yo estoy libre!!!!Yahoooooo!!! I’m free from all the stupid questions !!!! I’m free to manage my time in a more effective and constructive way….
I’m kind of surprised at the answers on this one. I’m a fairly prickly person, but you all are making me feel better about myself.
No one likes interruptions all day. I made sure my door was closed when I was doing something truly uninterruptable. I tried to leave it open a fair amount though (when doing emails or whatnot), because I found that those pop-in conversation were the ones that let me build relationships and find out what was really going on in the company. Those relationships and that insight made me more effective in serving my real customer–the company and the senior leadership team.
My gosh. I sound like a total goody-goody. Gag me.
(Part of my deal is that I am now a stay-at-home mom to a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old, which means I am interrupted every six seconds. And the interruptions often involve poop. That didn’t happen as much when I was working in HR.)
This issue of customer service is very simple. What do I need to do in order to establish my credibility and value to the organization so that I continue to be PAID and included in major decisions? Ask yourself this every day, if necessary. If part of that involves “serving,” then fine. But you just have to know where to draw the line or cut people off entirely.
Executives are far too quick to cut HR out of the loop on major issues, so if Mahogany Row needs to be my customer base in order to for them to learn to trust that I’m looking out for them, then, yes, I’m all about ordering a new medical card for them when they really could do it themselves. Because my next step is to make them self-reliant and then get to the meat of what I really need to be doing within the organization.
My HR Department has been severely downsized over the past year, and I’m the only one left. I don’t have time to hold everyone’s hand when they can’t figure out their doctor bill. But since I invested some time in helping the VP’s, CFO, and CEO with their doctor bills, they’re backing me up when I tell the rank and file “I’m not your mommy, call the broker.” And since the rank and file have already seen me in the trenches with them through layoffs and all the other bad crap this recession entails, they don’t fuss when I tell them to put on their big kid pants. They know I’m solid when the shizzle hits the fan, so it’s not that difficult to wean them off expecting me to do every little thing for them when there’s a way to do it themselves.
That said, it’s not easy to convince management you’ve got their back, while also convincing employees you’ve got theirs (when, really, we each should have our own backs first). So maybe charm, wit, and Jedi mind tricks have something to do with maintaining that balance as well.
@Laurie, to answer your points, I would like to direct you to the article I have written about the demise of HR as a professional and rise of the Human Capital role: http://leanstartups.com/2009/03/make-hr-accountable-rise-of-human-capital.html
I might be stirring hornets nest here, but some things have to be said.
I know HCs who do get it are definitely on my side.
@Apollo I’ll go take a look!
@H Aria I love how you keep coming back to yoda and the Jedi mind. It’s all about picking battles, isn’t it?
@Kerry I think there’s something to be said for hearing what’s happening ‘on the floor’ and building relationships, but I’m of the mindset that HR works too had to build relationships. You automatically have a relationship with finance because they help you construct your budgets, plan projects, etc. — and I think it should be no different with Human Resources. I don’t want to build a relationship with you and do all of the work. The relationship exists — let’s build on it together like adults. (Now that being said, I love the inclusion of poop in your comment. Big ups for that one.)
@Latina HR Do you have employees or inmates?
You know, as I ponder this further, I think part of my deal is that I’m an introvert. Walking around striking up conversations with people has never been natural to me. I compensated for that by being more open to people coming to me in my office, I think. You more extroverted types probably don’t need to do that.
If it’s poop you want, I got it in spades, for real.
Okay, so now that I’m seeing the hate for two phrases I use all the time in the workforce (“I have a question” and “Are you busy?”) -can anyone suggest some alternatives?
I guess I say “I have a question” just as an intro and I can drop that easily enough. But I view “are you busy?” as an courtesy. If someone’s just tidying up email, they can say “no” and we can talk. If they’re in the middle of an important project or need to finish their thought, etc., then they can tell me that and I can go away for a bit. What’s the problem here?
The problem with “are you busy” is that it implies that the person might not be busy. At work. And really everyone’s busy at work, and even if they aren’t, it’s pretty dumb to say, “I’m not busy,” because then you get laid off. If I’m doing email, I’m busy…doing email.
I interrupt by saying, “I need 3-4 minutes to ask a question about FMLA. Is now a good time?” You’re giving a realistic time estimate (not, “do you have a sec,” because it’s never “a sec”), and you’re saying what it’s about, and you’re asking whether it should be now or later. That’s not rude (IMO). If someone’s still crabby after that, well, they’re just plain crabby then.
@Kerry Do you have 3-4 minutes to tell me a poop story?
@KMC I’m glad you have a question. Now ask me if you can ask the question and we’ll have an adult conversation.
@Kerry Fair enough — your approach lets the person know upfront what you’re asking about. Made me think of *my* pet peeve at work: starting a conversation by asking if I can do you a favor. Well, I don’t know – it depends on what the favor is.
@Laurie. Ha.
Nobody, nobody, nobody in their right mind would ever go to someone in “big corporate” HR and say “I have a question”, would they? Tell me it ain’t so.
That would like asking a starving cannibal “what’s for lunch?”…