The first job I had out of college, I interacted with HR twice: once when I had a sexual harassment complaint, which ended up taking 2 agonizing months to “resolve” and ended with the offender not being punished at all and me still having to work on the same team with him and just… Deal with him being a huge man baby about the whole thing.
The second time was when they fired me without issuing a warning first and making no attempt to fix the issue. I understood both situations from their point of view and I know they were just doing their job, but obviously that left a horrible taste in my mouth for ever involving HR in any issue I experience I work.
I took another position very briefly with a company that seemed great in every way except their HR documents (the employee handbook had several questionable sections that weren't necessary for legal reasons and within context it seemed like the HR department was just unpleasant).
While I was reading the handbook, I noticed this sentence:
“An employee's wages or any other earnings should not be discussed with other employees.”
I'm in the US, so this TECHNICALLY skirts the regulations because they do say specifically that discussions cannot be prohibited and that is technically only discouragement. But it made me uncomfortable so I sent an email to HR about it.
The email I sent said:
” I noticed there's a concerning sentence about wage discussion. I believe this kind of statement is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act and I would be uncomfortable signing off on the handbook with it included.”
The response literally made me laugh out loud so I wanted to share it here:
“With regard to the wage discussion – we WILL NOT retaliate against anyone for discussing wages but it's more a respect point of view with ****** and numerous other companies. If you are uncomfortable with the verbiage, I recommend you strike through the sentence and initial by it. We are always reviewing the handbook and will take that under advisement for future versions.”
The best part is that I was supposed to e-sign the document and there was no place for comments or edits within the e-signing system, so that wouldn't have been possible. Luckily I got a different position and didn't stay with that company, but I'm still rolling my eyes about it.