I am horrified at a video that I saw posted by a fellow HR professional. I don’t personally know her but she is in the same industry as me. I won’t name and shame her but I want to highlight the importance of expert and professional HR advice vs someone who just has a qualification in HR but isn’t very practical or knowledgeable in employment law.
Today, I saw a video on TikTok of a HR manager who was describing a scenario that she experienced. The manager said that she had been in a virtual meeting with a colleague and said that she found out in this call that the colleague had a 10 month old baby. The manager took this very badly and cited that it would be impossible to look after a child and work from home.
This is utterly disgraceful and I have so many comments on this;
1. I find it fascinating that the manager had no idea that the employee has a 10 month old baby. As HR you would be privy to that information having been the person to, conduct or orchestrate the pregnancy risk assessment, plus the return to work meeting post maternity leave. For arguments sake let’s say that this was a large business and the HR manager didn’t deal with this particular employee, maybe her colleague took responsibility for the risk assessments etc.
In that case, before making a public TikTok video she should’ve done her research and looked into the HR file at the very least.
2. It is obvious that the employee had been back at work for some time. Therefore, this reeks discrimination to me. The HR manager had no prior question around the employees performance so it’s impossible to claim this to be a performance issue. The only reason that the HR manager is questioning the employees capabilities is on the grounds of caring needs. That’s discrimination.
3. It is a basic employer duty to open dialogue with an employee that’s returned from statutory to leave to discuss roles, responsibilities, expectations and reasonable adjustments. Reasonable adjustments does not mean that the company suffers a detriment. If your HR professional is well versed in employee rights as well as your business objectives, what you get is a happier more engage workforce which means you benefit from high productivity from your employees.
Many years ago I used to wonder why businesses would find themselves in employment tribunals especially when they have an in-house HR manager. Times like this I reminded once again it’s because of the gaps in their knowledge or execution of HR practices.
The moral of the story is not to poke at HR managers. It’s more around businesses understanding that your HR function needs imbedding into other parts of your business too. If you allow HR to be a standalone function in the business then your HR strategies will not align with the overall business strategies and you will find yourself in tribunal. Talk to your HR manager, discuss data and insights, and talk about strategy.
Founder of HR Habitat, award winner of "Best HR & Employment Law Consultancy, 2024" title. As featured in BBC Oline, BBC Asian Network Radio, Telegraph & more.
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