Human Resources departments

[pixieb]

What is the name of your state? MN

I am wondering if there are any laws or guidelines governing Human Resources departments, in 2 areas:

1) Does a company have to have an HR rep or some other person on site for employees to communicate grievances to? Or is it lawful for a company to have employees report grievances to the Director or person with the highest position, in which case it would be difficult since there is no neutral party to record complaints about the Director him- or herself.

2) Are there any guidelines as far as ratio of HR reps or Grievance reps to the number of employees? I work for a corporation that has multiple locations and just one HR rep per region--a region in this case is 5 different sites.

Thanks!

 

[cbg]

1.) No. There are no laws regarding HR departments at all. No law in any state requires an employer to have an HR person on site, or at all. No law dictates to the employer who may receive complaints or grievances. If the only person available to take a complaint is the person that the complaint is about, your recourse is to go to the appropriate regulatory agency.

2.) As above, no law requires that there even BE an HR department. The Society for Human Resources Management recommends that there be one HR person for every 100 employees; however, that is a recommendation only. SHRM is not a regulatory agency and can only recommend; they cannot require.

 

[pixieb]

re: HR depts.

Can you clarify: what are the regulatory departments you mention?

This leads to another question: if the HR person and/or the Director aren't following HR policy or don't understand HR policy, what recourse does an employee have?

 

[cbg]

The DOL, the EEOC, etc. If the complaint or grievance does not violate the law, then you're probably out of luck.

If company policy is not being followed, that falls into the too bad, so sad category. No law requires an employer to follow their own policies in most cases.

If you have a specific instance you want to ask about, do so. It's very hard to answer questions in a vaccum.