In case you missed it, the whisper network surrounding Jimmy Fallon’s professionalism finally exploded into a full-on shouting match with the release of a Rolling Stone expose on the toxic work environment he has created at The Tonight Show. Fallon’s done the typical song and dance, promising to do better because he got caught and basically had to, not because he woke up and decided to stop being a terrible boss and leader.
After reading the initial piece, one of the things that stood out most to me was the reiteration of what I was taught early in my career by a mentor: HR’s sole function within an organization is to protect the organization, not the individual worker. Any benefit to the employee is a byproduct of this and not a core goal of the department, despite what HR employees would like to accomplish. However, anyone who’s ever worked in a professional setting knows that the way HR is presented to the employees is that they are an advocate for them.
This is simply untrue, as The Tonight Show employees found out:
Employees describe being afraid of Fallon’s “outbursts” and unexpected, inconsistent behavior. Many of these staffers voiced their concerns through HR complaints, but problems at The Tonight Show persisted.
[…]
Five employees say they spoke to HR about their experiences behind the scenes of The Tonight Show in their exit interviews when they voluntarily left the show as well as during their time of employment. One longtime employee says they never reported their issues to HR because early on in their tenure at the show, they saw colleagues of theirs attempt to speak to human resources representatives and subsequently get fired from the show.
“They don’t protect us,” the former staffer says. “They don’t do anything for us.”
Rolling Stone
Now, obviously, I wasn’t there, but I am fairly certain that Fallon’s behavior was reported up the food chain by HR, and it was deemed not a big enough liability to NBC Universal and, thus, not addressed with him. Isn’t being a worker in the hellscape that is America’s “at-will” employment grand?
HR is there to protect the company and, by extension, its executives. This is because in this backward labor-hating country, those at the top are seen as responsible for revenue (by whom? The others at the top, of course), and HR needs to protect them at all costs to protect the money, which seems to have happened at The Tonight Show.
This is not to say that people working in HR are working against the average rank-and-file employee. I’m sure many go into that career path wanting to help people. However, that is simply not the primary function of the role:
In truth, HR does not exist to help employees, although much of what we do and how we do it achieves that goal. The main job of HR, from the C-suite point of view, is to protect the company by delivering competent employment candidates on a timely basis, supporting effective and legal recruitment and selection procedures, and keeping the company’s behavior on the right side of the law at all times and in all matters.
If you can help employees along the way, without jeopardizing the company, more power to you. But while HR is often seen as employee-centric, all you have to do is follow the money to see who it really serves.
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)
It’s clear from the Rolling Stone article that both employees and HR personnel who wanted to help ran up against this hard truth when dealing with Fallon:
“I ended up talking to the HR person later on the phone, and she was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve never seen anything like this.’ She was like, ‘I don’t know why you’re being let go. You didn’t do anything wrong.… I’ve never seen somebody get fired for no reason,’” the former staffer says.
Rolling Stone
Until labor is valued fairly in this country, this practice will continue. Somewhere along the line in the past 100 years, the powers that be pulled a fast one: They swapped out unions, which protect the worker, with HR, which protects the interests of the company. Until we can right that wrong, the only advice I can give you is to simply reiterate: HR is there to protect the interests of the company, not your own. Proceed with caution.
(featured image: NBC Universal)
