I dare say it will have come as a crushing shock to you to read that a report has suggested the Home Office is a dysfunctional convocation of mithering wet-lipped halfwits living on a planet considerably distant from our own and more concerned with attending Sapphic Sounds workshops than doing anything that might alleviate the miseries which daily afflict our nation.
And I think Rod has just given us an interesting addition for our script under development.
Ummm … wasn’t that the entire point of the “Yes, Minister” series?
Details may have changed over 40 years, but as then, it is now..
Umm, I think the devout Muslim QK has appointed as Home Secretary is consulting her Immams as to how to inflict more grief on the Infidels…
“Do you remember the time when we had personnel officers? Maybe one or two, in a medium-sized company. They are gone. What we have now is human resources, a sector of our economy that has increased by 83 per cent in the past 14 years: we now have more than half a million of these monkeys on the payroll. This is the consequence of a “people-focused” business approach and the relentless iteration of the phrase, by every company boss, “our most valuable resource is our wonderful staff”.”
Nope. It’s about having lots more women in offices.
Go into a manufacturing company and HR barely exists. The one I’m thinking of, with over 300 staff had 2 women in HR. They sorted out job ads, did the payroll, helped with disciplinary situations but were barely bothered. Because men, and the sort of women that can work around men, don’t go running to HR over problems. If there’s a problem, they talk to the person in the team, or the manager.
“No longer was someone employed to produce a product, or put into effect a policy; they were there to achieve self-actualisation, to express themselves, to find themselves fulfilled. The whole point of the job somehow got lost in this process — it became a kind of afterthought.”
The public sector doesn’t really give much of a shit about how much anyone produces, which is a problem that has existed since at least the mid-90s, across multiple colours of government. Someone tells the minister a system is going to be delayed and they just be like “OK” rather than wanting a manager’s head on a plate. Unless you get a government elected that has ministers who care about government working, rather than fucking off around the country for photo-ops in hard hats, you’re never going to change this.
Now there are good people in the public sector, sometimes, really good people. But that’s their choice to work hard at their jobs. The wasters only go when there’s cuts and managers need to lose 20%.
The only women who should be allowed to work in HR or whatever they want to call it are ones that have successfully raised 3 boys.
Solves two problems.
That’s not a bad test, but you only really need the HR chief to be like that. She can have a couple of girlies working for her, but she’ll tell them what she wants.
HR just shouldn’t be a big function. Their role should be part of hiring, discipline, promotions, payroll and a lot of that is just bureaucratic. Most problems with staff should be managed in a team. They can also be useful for advice.
I mentioned a small manufacturing company, but I don’t think Honda’s HR was much bigger than 8 or 10 women. But Honda was mostly men, or the sort of women that wouldn’t go off crying to HR if she overheard a bloke telling another bloke what he got up to with his girlfriend.
@ WB
Several decades ago I left school at 17 and went to work at the largest chemical factory in Europe with over 2,000 employees – Staff department comprised two middle-aged ladies who checked that I had a NI number (they obtained one for new employees who hadn’t got one) and arranged for my pay to be paid into a bank account (I walked over to the bank that my parents used and opened an account in the lunch-hour), sorted out my tax code and whatever else was needed (I think they made a note of my GP). Less than 1 in a thousand employees working in HR and they did all that was *needed* (making sure everyone got paid.the right amount including overtime was their largest job and they got that right so for the first three months I paid NI but no income tax – no stupid “emergency coding” when HR/HMRC can’t get their act together).
It’s sad that this no longer happens.
If the right kind of boy one might be enough.
Me to grandson: “What’s the best thing in the world?”
Him: “Excavators!”
No. I thought the Home Office was staffed entirely by foreigners each acting on behalf of his own ethnic group. I find that explanation necessary and sufficient.
Most people in government are just lazy. People on the right assume there’s a load of reds not doing things because they want more asylum seekers in or to bring down the Tories. And it’s not, it’s much more boring. Civil service and local authorities have some really lazy people. They all vote Labour, sure. But that’s just about getting bigger pay rises.
I worked in a University where HR grew and grew. It was based in an open plan office, numbered Room 101. Appropriate.