[HN Gopher] Employees are bypassing HR, sharing on LinkedIn
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Employees are bypassing HR, sharing on LinkedIn
Author : this_weekend
Score : 81 points
Date : 2025-01-12 18:11 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.businessinsider.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.businessinsider.com)
| Aloha wrote:
| https://archive.ph/rjIbg
| crmd wrote:
| As an old person, I'm very much of the mindset, "Keep your mouth
| shut as much as possible, never air dirty laundry publicly, and
| don't pick fights with your company who has infinitely greater
| legal budget than you do."
|
| However, I've come to seriously respect younger workers who don't
| take shit from anyone and will gladly burn a company to the
| ground on social media if they feel like they are being abused in
| the workplace.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Most people have fear about this sort of thing. Even once you
| quit. Like maybe if you post something you won't get hired
| back. Employee speech outside of work environments should be
| protected. But I think as long as people have something to
| lose, they will censor themselves. Young people have little to
| lose.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| What companies have been burned to the ground on Social Media?
| Equifax? Wells Fargo? Tesla? Twitter? Uber?
|
| I support civil disobedience but aren't many attempts at civil
| disobedience by lone actors largely ineffective?
|
| I think its important to call out ineffective civil activism so
| that individuals can create more effective strategies for
| creating actual change for the social good.
| TheSkyHasEyes wrote:
| They probably meant smaller companies. I too have noticed
| this and agree with the commenter above.
| NuSkooler wrote:
| Love every bit of this type of stuff that mostly only the younger
| generations are doing. Maybe someday, our society will move away
| from slaving away in terrible environments to realistically only
| raise up a handful of humans.
| somethoughts wrote:
| To be honest - the great thing is that even if a small
| percentage of people choose the LinkedIn/Social Media shame
| route, it benefits everyone. Just the threat of this will
| probably make employers/managers think about the potential
| consequences of such actions.
|
| That said - it'd be recommended that the employee have a pretty
| air tight story since there internet can easily turn the other
| way.
| iknownthing wrote:
| Probably better to do it on anonymous social media
| bbqfog wrote:
| I'd hire someone brave enough to stand up for themselves and
| against a toxic workplace. That's how you affect real change.
| Sometimes it pays to put ego out the window for something
| that's radically better.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Unfortunately, that's very much not how the managerial class
| thinks. Workers that speak up and publicly diss their
| employer are dangerous for any manager and business, because
| they won't shut up and do as they're told. Very few will
| knowingly hire someone who risks calling out their own
| bullshit.
| 8note wrote:
| notifying future candidates such that they dont join also
| creates real change. the company cant hire anyone and goes
| out of business
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Maybe but I think at this point we tune out places like Blind
| as a nonstop stream of groundless bellyaching and unfounded
| rumors about layoffs next week. It's hard to know what's true
| or not in such an environment.
| owebmaster wrote:
| not if you want to become an influencer
| bbqfog wrote:
| Toxic bosses are one of the most damaging things you can have in
| a company. It's counter-intuitive but smart leadership would be
| thanking these people for exposing the rot in their own
| companies.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| HR and Legal work for the company and will often manipulate
| people and situations to reduce their risks and justify their
| actions. So this isn't surprising. But also I think public
| discussion of issues is the only way for people to move towards
| defending workplace conditions.
| eschulz wrote:
| HR is to protect the company, first and foremost. Sure, they'll
| discuss protecting the worker's rights, but that's in order to
| protect the company from a scenario where a worker's rights have
| been violated and they have a legitimate complaint against the
| company.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Which is why I thought this line of reasoning from the article
| is extremely disingenuous
|
| > Tim Glowa, the founder and CEO of HR Brain, says that "rather
| than venting online, reporting helps build a proper case while
| ensuring confidentiality and protecting your professional
| reputation," adding, "What you post online can follow you
| indefinitely."
|
| If you read between the lines on this it's clear as day that
| they are saying speaking up is bad for your career, without
| saying those words explicitly.
|
| Executives, VPs and SVPs hate being held accountable by their
| workers, that's my main takeaway here
| eschulz wrote:
| Yes, his product is protection offered to companies and
| company officers.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| There's more nuance. When you go public with an accusation or
| problem, you can't control when, who or how it is used. It's
| unlikely that you're going to be able to frame the narrative
| effectively to get something of value.
|
| For example, an issue related to something that you expressed
| in your public can be picked up, embraced and extended and
| turned into a racial or other high attention/impact issue.
| The press can run with it and create a mess. More likely,
| nobody cares, and you'll be painted as a crazy person, and
| crazy people go away.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| >> _[Workers] tend to see human resources as an extension of
| corporate dogma meant to reinforce company policies._
|
| It is.
|
| HR may do other stuff above and beyond, but their first priority
| will _always_ be compliance.
|
| Consequently, whether or not HR is the appropriate venue to
| address your problem boils down to -- "Is this a compliance issue
| for the company? And if so, will resolving it be in my favor?"
| (E.g. sexual harassment)
|
| If yes/yes, go to HR. If anything else, find another line of
| redress.
| RachelF wrote:
| Interesting that the examples in the article are from
| Australia.
|
| Perhaps employee protection is better in Australia than in the
| US?
| skissane wrote:
| Australian law has "unfair dismissal" - if your employer
| terminates you for "unfair" reasons, then you can take them
| to court, and if you win you either get reinstated or
| compensated. Very different from the "at-will employment"
| which prevails in much of the US. (I put "unfair" in quotes
| because it is ultimately about what a court concludes is
| unfair, based on the legislation and case law, which might
| not be the same as what you or I think is unfair.)
|
| It is worth pointing out it only applies if your annual
| salary is less than the "high income threshold", which is
| currently AU$175,000 (approximately US$107,000). They
| increase that amount every year, and their definition of
| "income" excludes certain things (such as bonuses). If your
| income is above that, you can't sue under unfair dismissal
| law, although you still can sue for common law breach of
| contract (which is more difficult, however-employers
| generally try to word employment contracts to maximise their
| freedom to terminate you, although there is always the chance
| a court will find the relevant terms of the contract legally
| invalid, at least as applied to your particular case.)
|
| https://www.fwc.gov.au/high-income-threshold
| jimbob45 wrote:
| HR needs to adopt a mantra similar to medicine's "First, do no
| harm". If there was any question over whether doctors would
| ever knowingly hurt patients, the entire profession would halve
| its patientload over night.
|
| Likewise, HR departments are by-and-large good places with
| helpful and supportive people. However, the fact that they have
| the ability at all to report your conversations to management
| means no one trusts them and they become ineffective as a
| result.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| As long as this is an arm of the company and there is no
| disinterested third party the incentive will always dictate
| that HR will place the interest of the company over the
| employee. As the old adage goes (paraphrased): "It's
| difficult to make someone believe something when their salary
| depends on them not believing it".
| atmavatar wrote:
| The misunderstanding causing confusion here is that for HR,
| the business is the patient - not the employee.
|
| From HR's perspective, an employee is a body part of the
| business. If helping the employee (i.e., healing the body
| part) is best for the business, that's what HR does. If
| terminating the employee (i.e., amputating the body part) is
| best for the business, that's what HR does.
| disqard wrote:
| I liked your analogy, and it sparked a thought -- employees
| are like fingernails: tools to be used, and trimmed/filed
| down when not needed.
|
| Of course, your analogy is better, because when
| corporations conduct layoffs to save money to do stock
| buybacks, that is really much closer to amputating body
| parts for the sake of a "weight loss" metric.
| thatcat wrote:
| I'm not sure the mantra is effective. The 3rd leading cause
| of death is medical malpractice and yet people are still sick
| and still go to the doctor.
| refulgentis wrote:
| I get what you're saying, but it's a dizzying problem - the
| proximate problem to HR in these scenarios isn't that people
| think HR is bad or worry they'll relay the complaint, it's
| that HR has no teeth.
|
| At Google, I had an...unusual...de-facto manager for 2 years.
| After declining their offer to join their team, they spent
| six months engaging in behavior that violated company
| policies - though not in obvious ways like sexual harassment
| or violence.
|
| Going to HR seemed futile. Even assuming they could keep
| anonymity, their role is simply to investigate and report to
| management three levels up. Without clear-cut violations, it
| becomes a credibility contest. Since upper management
| selected the middle managers, they're inherently biased
| toward defending their choices.
|
| The situation came to a head between December 1st and January
| 1st. My performance rating plummeted from "O" (top 10%) to
| "MI" (bottom 10%) _and_ a technically separate formal
| warning. Things came to a head because they were nominally
| leading work that was a huge political warzone between
| organizations, and they didn 't really want to do anything.
| After I politely demurred their invitation to transfer, they
| hired a childhood friend as my replacement - they're still
| launching "new" features with the code I wrote two years ago.
|
| I documented various incidents over those six months that
| violated Google's code of conduct. But even in the best-case
| scenario:
|
| - HR confirms the violations.
|
| - They report findings to my third-level manager.
|
| - My second-level manager (who chose my de-facto manager)
| blames me.
|
| - The third-level manager (who chose the second-level
| manager) defers to their choice.
|
| I entered Google wondering how they handled professional
| disagreements. (I was a young CEO for the 5 years prior)
| Seven years later, I realized they don't - disagreement
| itself is seen as inappropriate. This dynamic inevitably
| hurts those lowest in the hierarchy. It's not malicious;
| everyone believes they're acting appropriately. But once
| anyone decides to prioritize comfort over strict policy
| enforcement (a natural human tendency), standard human
| politics take over. I honestly, swear to god, saw this in
| abundance at Google in ways I never saw at a fast food job.
|
| What I once dismissed as complaints from underperformers now
| seems depressingly accurate.
| mihaaly wrote:
| I find the name expressive.
|
| Human RESOURCES.
|
| Desks, xerox machine, Vasarely replica in the meeting room,
| humans, printers, patents and inventions, inventory in the
| warehouse, etc., all the same. Resources. Buy, sell, replace,
| act like it worths more than elsewhere. But eventually just
| items tossed around.
|
| ... I had a sceptic smile when one pretended they are better by
| pinning 'People Manager' designation on the very same person
| taming this troublesome and risky resource for the very big and
| famous but utmost caring company that I came across recently.
| Some seem to feel the weigth of the word (or just trying to
| pretend ever stronger how caring they are, when the bi-weekly
| pizza and everyone-is-so-happy-here group photo in company logo
| t-shirts are just too stale and overused).
| keb_ wrote:
| Great point, this reminded me of this great fasterthanlime
| video about your relationship with your employer:
| https://youtu.be/52pdPQHDKho?t=373
| renewiltord wrote:
| There's always Blind if you're worried about your reputation.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| Glassdoor too.
| smcleod wrote:
| Glassdoor is very problematic. They pull negative reviews all
| the time and tend to side with employers on almost all
| feedback disputes.
| akulbe wrote:
| Not only is it problematic... the real anonymity is gone,
| as well. I would not recommend using it anymore.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| I would use a throwaway email address, and not give them
| my real name. It works fine if used in this way. Also, I
| would run it in a private window only, so there is no
| cookie left behind. It doesn't work well with ad-
| blockers, but the private window takes care of them.
| r053bud wrote:
| HR are literally corporate cops. They are never on your side,
| next thing you know you, are not a good "cultural fit" for
| complaining. I've never once brought an issue to HR.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| I don't think this is "bypassing HR"
|
| These folks are using their negative experiences to become
| influencers or teach others. I doubt the LinkedIn subtweeting at
| a boss actually impacts the specific toxic boss.
|
| Some people are horrible to colleagues and peers and can work the
| system to progress their careers. Some organizations reward this
| unconsciously (because everyone is such a person!). I don't think
| there's much an individual can do to change such a culture. You
| just need to leave and find a better one.
| neilv wrote:
| I'd talk on HN before LinkedIn.
|
| LinkedIn is 99%+ corporate-slime and self-promoting behavior, and
| that fact makes me suspect anything someone says there.
|
| HN is far from perfect, but, for example, there's enough people
| posting pseudonymously, and I think a good percentage of those
| are saying something because they want to say it or think it
| should be said. Not because they're posturing for hiring or
| followers.
| neilv wrote:
| When criticizing a company or individual behavior on HN (not on
| LinkedIn), some guidelines/practices I've been evolving
| personally:
|
| * Don't talk about your current employer. Work within the company
| to solve any problems there. (If you can't solve problems there,
| get away ASAP. Work with a lawyer, if necessary. Still don't talk
| about it publicly while you're there.)
|
| * Don't name individuals. That's fraught with risks, including
| you being somehow wrong and doing harm, Internet mobs being dumb
| as snot, and all the shameless data-mining surveillance many
| companies are doing could mean outsized/inappropriate harm to
| someone.
|
| * Don't name a company if you've worked for them, or otherwise
| had non-public access to it. Who is going to trust you in the
| future if you don't show discretion.
|
| * Don't violate NDA.
|
| * Be sufficiently vague so that you can talk about generalizable
| learnings. Your goal is for other people to learn not to do X;
| your goal isn't to hurt the reputation of a person who once did
| X. To help anonymize the subjects, you talk about things you've
| "seen" (in an ambigious sense) at places you've worked, as well
| as with people you've talked with, companies you've studied,
| etc., without saying which it was. You can do this without saying
| anything untrue. This is harder to do with only a few years of
| experience, though.
|
| * Don't try to unmask anonymous/pseudonymous other people who
| share, nor unmask the identity of companies/people they're
| talking about. You could be wrong in your deductions, or you
| could just be disrepecting how they tried to share with
| discretion in good faith.
|
| Other guidelines/practices?
| fluorinerocket wrote:
| No, name and shame
| neilv wrote:
| Can you say rationale for disagreeing?
|
| (Since you posted that one-line response, at least 3 people
| have downvoted me, but no explanation other than your one-
| line disagreement without argument. So I'm not learning much,
| and maybe I wasted my time bothering to type out my current
| thinking.)
| pessimizer wrote:
| I think that what you typed makes a lot of sense. Maybe
| people downvoted it because it was so clearly presented
| that it triggered their internal LLM detector.
| neilv wrote:
| New life goal: repeatedly poison LLM training data, so
| that everyone cheating on their homework, or at their
| jobs, starts 'saying' things like "Internet mobs are dumb
| as snot". :)
| convolvatron wrote:
| being afraid to speak honestly might be most pragmatic
| choice, but it certainly perpetuates the status quo where
| toxic employers don't really fear any repercussions. aside
| from it being morally corrupt, the continuance of the
| status quo isn't helping the economy or the company.
| abusive bosses are ineffective bosses.
| blast wrote:
| This is a PR hit for "the 34-year-old with more than 80,000
| followers"
| johnea wrote:
| So, Microsoft is the basis for a "new worker uprising"?
|
| That's... a pretty funny statement 8-)
|
| Just another example of people thinking a database entry on a
| corporate software platform is their "real life"...
| yodsanklai wrote:
| If I had an issue within my company, I assume I'd talk to my
| representatives within the company, or seek assistance from a
| lawyer (I suppose most countries have labour courts). Sharing on
| LinkedIn may backfire. Depending on the issue, you may pass as a
| trouble maker that companies would rather avoid.
| mancerayder wrote:
| LinkedIn is full of PR nonsense. It's hard to believe. It's a
| medium for expression; the intelligent way to express is to self-
| promote subtly, the unintelligent is to express your feelings.
|
| I've seen a number of people I used to work with, who are
| suddenly CTO's, or some C-level position, although I truly doubt
| it. Someone I used to work who can barely communicate in
| sentences and has a fairly heavy autism, and never managed
| anyone, is now listed as 'IT Director' on LinkedIn. I had to
| laugh.
|
| And let's not forget the recruiters, who are always described
| like this: "Getter-Doner-of-Things; Enterpreneur; Executive
| Headhunter; author; Thought Leader; and Father"
|
| Sorry, now it's me expressing my feelings.
| stogot wrote:
| There's a lot of title inflation. I've seen several companies
| posting assistant jobs as "chief of staff" with low salaries
| codr7 wrote:
| It only takes one disagreement to see the true face of HR.
|
| They are special trained to tear unwanted employees into shreds.
|
| No surprise, really. They are employed by the same company you're
| disagreeing with.
| manosyja wrote:
| > "HR is often more about protecting the company's interests than
| supporting employees," Costi says. "Reporting toxic behavior can
| backfire, labeling you as a 'troublemaker' and potentially
| putting your job at risk. The sad reality is that many toxic
| bosses are untouchable, insulated by the very system that's
| supposed to hold them accountable."
|
| This is exactly the reason tinnitus go to HR. Can confirm.
| znpy wrote:
| Eh, same old story. HR is not your friend.
|
| HR is there to protect the company from you, not you from the
| company.
| ranger207 wrote:
| > Brenecki also notes why it might make sense to go to HR. If
| you're experiencing harassment, discrimination, or other bad
| behavior at work, the company likely prefers that you go to HR so
| it can handle the situation according to state employment laws.
| If you don't go to HR, the company could later be found legally
| liable for allowing discrimination or retaliation.
|
| At the point where you have to choose between going to HR and
| posting on LinkedIn, the company has already allowed
| discrimination or retaliation, and so should be punished for
| allowing that. If you go to HR, there's much less chance of the
| company being actually punished like they should be. You _want_
| them to be held legally liable for allowing discrimination or
| retaliation
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| HR is the employer's HR dept.
|
| As an employee your HR dept is your union.
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