I love it when people are passionate about a topic and I’m able to appreciate it (usually) even when I may be vehemently opposed to their point of view.  Certainly election time  brings out that passion in an enhanced way as we see discussions unfold on various social media channels.  There are online/offline fights, defriending and Facebook posts such as “I’m going to just be lurking for the next 40+ days because I don’t want to argue with any of you mindless ridiculous idiots!”

It’s intriguing to me, as we contemplate the ever-increasing blending of personal/professional lives such as never before, to think about how those of us in the Human Resources field reconcile our personal belief systems and ideologies with those of our employer, industry and/or profession.

I know a number of progressive HR professionals who work in very conservative environments and I also know a number of conservative HR professionals who work in what they consider godless bastions of socialism liberalism.  Other than resigning or striking off on one’s own, is it a challenge for one to adequately reconcile one’s personal deeply held beliefs with one’s work environment?  Is it a regular occurrence for HR professionals to feel conflicted?  Upset? Or, much more likely, is it easiest for people to just go-with-the-flow and save their politickin’ for after hours and the family Thanksgiving gathering where they can enjoy the family honored tradition of berating Uncle Ed for his racist and misogynistic viewpoints?

*****

Several years ago I was involved in a somewhat rancorous debate with a room full of 25 or so HR colleagues.   We were at a meeting discussing the current session of the State Legislature and reviewing which bills had been proposed that would, potentially, affect business and therefore HR strategies and activities.  During this particular session a bill had been proposed that would have added to the state Unemployment Insurance (UI) code and allowed for payment of UI benefits if the employee had left employment due to domestic abuse.  In other words, if Mary was getting the crap beat out of her at home and could no longer come to work because she was in the hospital, had to move to a women’s shelter or needed to pick up and leave town she would, with adequate documentation (i.e. police/hospital reports), be eligible to receive UI benefits without having to go through a lengthy process to determine if she left her employment for good cause.

Fully 90% of those in attendance opposed this bill and vowed to fight its passage in whatever way they could. “Bad for business and too expensive” a group said. “People already scam the system and this will give them another way to do it” replied a few others. “Companies aren’t going to want to move here and add to our economy if we have this sort of coverage.”

“Who among us hasn’t had an employee faced with a domestic violence issue?” I asked. “I’m sure many of us in this room have had a family member or close friend who found themselves in this situation.  Do we truly feel that our role as HUMAN Resources professionals is to divorce ourselves from the HUMAN race solely in the name of business?” I was pretty much the lone voice.

I left the room feeling as though people were marching in lock step to what they had been taught was the HR anthem.  The collective vision of what an HR leader needed to be appeared to be a cigar-chomping industrialist with a single-minded purpose to protect the assets-of-the-bizness at all costs…and those assets didn’t include the people.  And I, personally, was appalled.  But at least I had my say.

**********

Now I’m not particularly a fan of additional government oversight, requirements or regulations – at the end of the day most add additional encumbrances, expenses and chores/tasks to the day-to-day life of business leaders and HR professionals.  But for every HR leader who complains about the advent of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obama Care”) and focuses on the accompanying administrative headaches, can there TRULY be anyone who doesn’t appreciate things like the workplace breastfeeding protections that came about as part of the Act?  We all had mothers after all.  (And, as a side note, I always found it pretty appalling that we had to ensure this kind of protection via statute.)

HR and business leaders are quite fond of the slippery slope argument – “If we start doing X then Y will inevitably follow.”  But we often like to use the slippery slope argument when it’s something in opposition to our belief system.

We’re often quite content to careen down that slope at warp speed when it takes us toward the bottom of the hill where we think we want to land.

**********

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BIOGRAPHY

Robin Schooling, SPHR, is a VP Human Resources in Louisiana. She’s a member of the Smartbrief on Workforce Advisory Board, and serves on the Advisory Board for the Louisiana Business Leadership Network. She blogs at HRSchoolhouse and is a contributor to the blogs WomenofHR and We Know Next.  You can follow her on twitter at @RobinSchooling.

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