While there are a few good people at the lower/mid levels in HR, you should know that HR spends must of its time like a police force for violations of dress code. For females, every aspect of appearance is restricted like what kind of shoes you can wear, how high your heels can be, what color hose/stockings, length of skirt (must be at or below the knee), no cleavage, no revealing sweaters. For males, hair length, hair style, facial hair, clothing are all based on rules. Ties are required 364 days a year (one casual day per year. I think HR turnover was probably like 30%, but because the number is lumped in with stable groups like benefits, guard force and cafeteria, which report into HR, it looks much better than it is. If someone split out the true turnover number for HR, the CEO would probably freak.
Organization is extremely hierarchical. Generally, if you talk to your boss's boss (in HR or elsewhere) you can get in major trouble. I saw few skip-levels unless there was a crisis.
Worse, HR doesn't do talent management. It takes forever to move people out of the organization because of fear of lawsuits. This means loads of paperwork and butt-covering, so company is stuck with a huge percentage of low performers because who has time to go through the process? It's like pulling teeth to get low performers out.
There's no turnover at the highest levels of company. Business heads get rotated around, even if they fail. Average age fo business heads is around 65-70. Most have no energy, no interest in what's happening in the outside world. I was told that at least one business head has been known to fall asleep during meetings. Ops, which I supported for a short while, is a gossip factory, with blame always falling to HR. The same leaders who have been their since the 90s watching the company shrink are still in charge in 2015.
This same talenet management gap is throughout the organization with possible exception of Fort Washington. There is no talent management function in HR, and then leadership wonders why the company underperforms the industry for expenses, growth. Could it be that 20% of the org are below average performers?
In addition to no talent management, there's no OD function in HR either. With no TM and no OD, you can imagine how stale the company has become. Which is why they spend their time as HR police, not strategic/value-added HR.
If you want to learn something about a modern HR org, stay as far away from this group as you can. But if you want to learn how NOT to run HR, go ahead and join up.
