SurvivingInfidelity.com Forum Archives

How many employees are there in your workplace?
Do you have a human resources person?
If not, who handles that function?

We have 283 employees. We have one HR person - that would be me! I love my job but feel like I am stretched a bit thin at times.

I have 35 employees. I'm the hr dept. I also do payroll and all benefits.
Apparently the board thinks we don't need an HR person. I'm so scared.

I would suggest that one H/R person for 35 employees is appropriate.

Recruiting; interviewing; talent management and retention; personnel development; payroll; performance evaluations; career roadmaps; litigation; onboarding/offboarding; training; merit increase cycles; budget (forecast, budget, actual); compensation development and administration; benefits; 401K; risk management; employee assistance; leave of absences; PTO/vacation....the list goes on.

I hope they never find out what happens when "H/R" is pulled out. Seems very short-sighted to me....unless you're materially over-compensated and/or other management-level personnel handle all of the above and you just sit there and look pretty.

And....to answer your question, I work for a public company with 27,000 employees - with an army of HR personnel.

Work comp, staff events planner, staff recognition, contract negotiator, position description author, salary survey conductor, benefit contract negotiator, FSA administrator, keeper of the keys... I mean... They have a $600k budget shortfall and they are wondering why we have an HR person?????
I'm so confused ....
Thanks so much for validating me Trustnoone. Sadly your moniker is becoming my mantra.

I've been there for 30 years. 25 in HR. At least 12 as a certified professional. Army of 1.

Sounds like they want to outsource your job to one of those off site payroll companies.

I work for a public school district. We have tons of employees and zillions of HR

Yes. Outsourcing works so well (insert sarcasm). The nonprofit agency that I worked for did this, and it was one of the reasons it fell apart.

I worked my way up to HR generalist, PHR, in a 125-ee company from being the office manager in a 20-ee, start-up company. And then the bosses wanted to get rid of HR because they couldn't figure out what I did! In essence my job never really changed -- I did everything from payroll/time clock, hiring/firing, counseling, policy writing, etc., to AR/AP, purchasing, and any other support office-work stuff. The difference was that various labor laws would kick in as the company got bigger, so someone had to be paying attention to that, and they tagged me.

Eventually, when I was told I was also supposed to "make all the employees happy" as part of my job duties, I decided to leave.

While I sometimes disagree with HR at the company where I currently work in accounting (hundreds of employees across the country, so there's a whole HR dept), I do think HR folks are generally undervalued by the bosses simply because HR doesn't usually contribute directly to increasing the bottom line.

[This message edited by ISPIFFD at 9:49 AM, June 20th (Friday)]

We have 7, er, uh, 6 now. Someone had to be let go yesterday. I'm the "HR person."

It sounds scary, Yewtree. I'm sorry. It's the wrong move, to eliminate the person who keeps their staff happy and productive and limits their liability.