r/human_resources

US- Hi all. Question about the best way to approach this situation. My son (19) works a summer job at an ice cream shop in the Midwest USA. While not a huge company, they are cooperate with 20+ locations. Being the type of business they are, the majority of their employees are high school and college kids. My son is one of the oldest at his location. Ok enough background- here’s the situation.

Yesterday the staff was preparing for a company audit/ walkthrough. All the usual stuff- temperature control, cleaning standards, etc. My son was told that his facial hair was out of dress code. Apparently the standard is for them to be clean shaven. He had a small amount of regrowth. He had shaved the evening before, so we are talking about the amount of a “5’o clock shadow” on a 19 year old kid. My son is overall very clean cut, not unsanitary in any way- hair, facial hair, nails, etc. Because they were expecting this audit within a the hour, the manager made my son shave. With a straight razor. That he has made others shave with. There was no cleaning, no shaving cream, and it was not a one time use disposable type razor. The possible medical issues that this opens him up to makes me sick. How do we proceed?

Obviously, he is 19 and an adult. So any complaints or communication should come from him. And he could/should have refused. He said in the moment he was caught off guard and just complied. He said he has seen this manager have others do this before. I am furious, and concerned for those teenagers that don’t know any better or how to stand up for themselves. I want them to facilitate blood work for my son and anyone else who has been instructed to use this razor. I also want to make sure that it doesn’t happen to anyone else, and for the manager who is doing this to be held appropriately accountable. This may seem silly, but it could quickly change someone’s life, all over a stupid ice cream shop manager’s power trip. I also have not seen the dress code policy itself to see if this is even actually a true policy that should have been addressed at all. When there are specifications regarding body hair, how is that legally defined? His was really such a small amount- not even 24 hours of regrowth.

Sorry if this was too long, and thank you for the advice!

We were in front of simple question, How is our organizational health trending across departments? three days, two analysts, and four ADP exports later we had a half answer.

i keep hearing about AI analytics platforms that connect to ADP and just answer these questions on demand. Anyone using HR analytics or workforce analytics tools that actually save time on this stuff? serious experiences only.

Rolled out a new gifting platform two months ago and adoption is genuinely soft 😬 Everyone asked for it. Leadership approved the budget. Procurement signed the contract. When it went live, people kept ordering from the vendors they'd always used and the new platform is sitting at maybe 30% utilization. The platform itself isn't the problem. People who use it like it. The problem is breaking the habit of how they were getting things done before. Curious what other HR teams have done to drive adoption after rollout. Specifically interested in the human change-management side, not the platform features.

Growing fast and we've identified talent in two different countries we want to bring on as full-time hires.

The problem is we have zero presence outside the Philippines and no experience navigating foreign labor laws.

Been reading about employer of record services as a way to handle this without registering a local entity but I'm not sure if it's overkill for just one or two hires.

Anyone been through this? What did you actually do and would you do it the same way again?

Curious which area of recruitment tends to create the most delays or manual effort for HR teams today.

Spent six weeks onboarding 23 new hires last quarter with a corporate gifting platform that absolutely was not built for it and I'm writing this post so nobody else has to learn what I learned.
Here's the actual ranking after testing five real options for new hire kits:
SwagUp. Solid kit-builder with a polished admin side, the $5k annual platform fee is the main friction at smaller scales.
Snappy. Good recipient UX with a recognition-first design, the catalog is smaller and leans more toward recognition moments than full onboarding kits.
Swaggy Shop. Best new hire onboarding fit, no platform fee, each new hire picks their own item and size and the kit ships direct.
Sendoso. Strong enterprise logistics with multi-program support, the pricing assumes you're hiring 200+ people a year which we aren't.
Printful. Cheapest per unit if you build your own onboarding storefront on top of their API, real engineering work that has to come from somewhere.
The actual unlock was getting out of the size-collection business. Bulk kit orders mean you collect sizes, batch order, chase three people for responses, and still get one mismatched kit per cohort. Recipient-choice removes that whole category of work.

What should I do in this situation? My current job at a small law office expects 4 weeks' notice from me. Earlier today, I got a phone call with an offer for a role I interviewed for a few weeks ago. The new employer said they want me to start in 2 weeks. When I told him that my current employer requires 4 weeks' notice, he basically said: "Look... We usually only give about 2 weeks. We still need to do a background check for you, and that's usually the part that slows things down, but if you think nothing will come up, I suggest you give notice now."

That confused me a bit. Is it smart for me to give notice now when I still don't have the offer in writing? They said the written offer should come to me by email at the end of this week. Right now, they need me to send them my transcript and schedule the background check appointment. After that, they'll give me the official start date.

This is my first real full-time job, so I haven't dealt with anything like this before. Honestly, I don't know what the right thing to do is. Help me!

Tomorrow is my first day going fully independent with my recruitment business. After many years in finance, corporate and fintech/saas.

Right now I have 1 client and close to $0 in revenue, so I figured I’d post here instead of pretending everything is already figured out. I need your help guys

If you’re hiring, or know someone who is, send me a DM and honestly, even introductions help a lot right now. If you know someone with hiring needs, feel free to share their LinkedIn, email or company name and I’ll gladly reach out professionally.

Inherited the anniversary gifting program at a 140 person company. Previous owner was running handwritten cards plus a generic gift card and the engagement scores around recognition were soft. Need to rebuild this in a way that scales because at our headcount we hit 3 to 5 anniversaries every month, too many to personalize manually. Spent two months mapping what actually works at this scale. The tier structure I landed on: 1 year. $50 store credit plus a card from the manager. Light touch, marks the milestone without overdoing it for someone who's just hit their stride. The dollar amount signals "we noticed" without setting expectations that recognition will scale linearly forever, which would become unsustainable at our growth rate. 3 years. $150 store credit plus a card from the manager and a separate note from a senior leader. Real commitment moment that deserves visibility from someone above the manager. The senior leader note is the variable that takes the most coordination but has the highest reported impact in our anonymous surveys. 5 years. $300 store credit plus a small celebration (team lunch or toast) plus a manager-selected gift on top of the credit. Hybrid of personalized and self-selected. The manager-selected piece is what makes it feel like a real milestone rather than a routine credit, even though the credit does most of the work.

10 years. Custom approach per person, conversation with HR plus the manager beforehand to scope what would actually mean something. The dollar amount alone stops carrying the signal at 10 years, you need a moment that breaks pattern from everything that came before. The store-credit model running on Swaggy Shop has worked at scale because each person picks their own item at the tier-appropriate amount.

For employee anniversary gifting Swaggy Shop has been the corporate gifts for employees setup that scaled because the dollar tier signals milestone weight and recipient choice removes the "what do they actually want" guessing-game at volume.

Unexpected finding: the dollar amount itself communicates more than the actual gift. People talk about getting a $150 vs $300 credit way more than they talk about whatever specific item they picked. The number is the recognition, the item is the artifact. How are other HR teams running anniversaries at 100+ headcount? Specifically curious about the 10 year approach because I have my first one in February and haven't cracked it yet.