Target HR does not like to get blood on their hands and deal with actual personnel issues. Instead they focus on new hires (have to keep the “talent pool” full of young MBA’s to backfill anyone who has aged out of their time at TGT). When a team members attempts to partner with HR to deal with ‘real’ human resources issues such as insubordinate team members HR instead focuses on the person raising the concern as the source of the problem. In other words, anyone raising a concern or issue has to be the one with the issue. Thus, HR is not a source for any team member to seek out advice and guidance to resolve personnel concerns. This has been a long-standing issue with HR departments since they morphed from Personnel departments that handled payroll and benefits to Human Resources that focus on the expendable resource of human beings. Look into the credentials of many in Target’s HR, it is a division made up of mostly women with failed attempts in other job sectors, oh wait in HR they call that a diverse workforce. If Target wants to ‘right-size’ or ‘down-size’ departments that are overly hierarchal, redundant and do not directly contribute to the bottom line then HR would be a good place to start to trim the fat.
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Don't count on HR to be your advocate. They work for the company, same as you and the company's interests are #1. You have to be your own advocate. It's that way everywhere, not just Target
I learned early that my naive belief that HR existed to be an advocate for me was ... I'm not even sure how to describe how out of touch reality it was.
There are some good people in HR but they are few and far between (and rarely in positions that help where you need then).
I do wonder how long the productivity drain of these on-going rumors will suck the life, vitality, and passion of a great company.
They are really bad and sleazy, most of them, there are some gems over there though.