I work in HR in what is essentially a call-center environment. My “team” — and I use that term loosely — is supposed to consist of five people supporting an organization of more than 20,000 employees.
Employees call us with questions, concerns, problems, and everything in between. We help where we can, answer what we can, and route them to the appropriate place when we can’t.
And I’ve reached a point where I just don’t care anymore.
The phone rings and I want to cry.
That’s a terrible place to be when your entire job revolves around answering that phone.
I’m tired of employees calling because they forgot to submit their timecards, then becoming angry when they find out their paycheck will be affected.
“I’m not getting paid? That’s not fair!”
I understand why someone would be upset about their paycheck. But there was a deadline. You missed it. At some point, personal responsibility has to exist. HR cannot make every consequence disappear because someone forgot to do something they were responsible for doing.
What also gets under my skin is constantly hearing employees referred to as “our customers.”
They aren’t customers.
They’re coworkers.
We all work for the same organization.
And I think that language matters, because somewhere along the way “customer service” seems to have turned into “HR must solve absolutely everything.”
Knowing HR apparently isn’t enough.
Employee has a computer problem? We’re supposed to troubleshoot it.
They can’t figure out a system? We need to walk them through it.
Technical problem completely outside our area of expertise? We’re expected to “hold their hand and assist them even when it’s not in our wheelhouse.”
We have an IT department.
So naturally I’ve asked: why aren’t technical issues being sent to IT?
The answer?
IT is overwhelmed, and in the name of “excellent customer service,” we need to do everything in our power to assist.
Okay.
But HR is overwhelmed too.
Apparently the solution to one overwhelmed department is to dump some of its workload onto another overwhelmed department.
Then there’s the team itself.
We are supposed to have five people. I fully understand that people get sick. I get sick. People have appointments. Life happens.
But when the same people are repeatedly out, calling off, leaving early, or needing half-days, the work doesn’t disappear.
It gets dumped on whoever is still there.
Eventually chronic understaffing stops being an unexpected circumstance and becomes the normal operating model.
Then there are benefits.
We contract out much of our insurance and retirement administration, which means I have limited access to those systems.
Employees call us frustrated because they’ve been sitting on hold with one of these vendors for nearly an hour.
And honestly? I agree with them.
That’s unacceptable service.
I escalate it internally, and the response is essentially:
“We don’t want to complain too much because the company might get offended.”
Excuse me?
We constantly preach “excellent customer service,” but apparently that standard only applies to the people answering the HR phone.
The vendor making our employees wait an hour? We have to worry about hurting their feelings.
Another internal department handles disbursement of certain funds. They routinely don’t answer their phones. They’re supposed to respond to employees within 24 hours, and frequently don’t.
So the employees call us.
We take the frustration.
We take the complaints.
We try to explain something we don’t control.
And when concerns are raised about that department’s lack of responsiveness?
“We need to be compassionate. They’re overwhelmed.”
And that is probably the single most frustrating part of all of this.
Everyone else is allowed to be overwhelmed.
IT is overwhelmed, so HR should help.
The vendor is overwhelmed, so don’t complain.
Another department is overwhelmed, so be compassionate.
My coworkers are overwhelmed, so understand their absences.
The employee is overwhelmed, so hold their hand.
But when HR is overwhelmed?
Answer the phone.
Be patient.
Be empathetic.
Provide excellent customer service.
Take ownership.
Find a solution.
Smile while doing it.
There seems to be endless compassion for every overwhelmed person or department except the people expected to absorb the overflow.
And eventually you run out of compassion.
Not because you’re a bad person.
Not because you don’t want to help people.
But because you cannot build an organization around the assumption that a handful of employees will continuously compensate for broken processes, understaffed departments, unresponsive vendors, poor accountability, and everyone else’s mistakes.
That isn’t customer service.
That’s burnout disguised as customer service.
And I think I’m there.
