Electric camels and lifeboats

Picture yourself as a first-class passenger on the Titanic in April 1912, wandering into the ship’s gymnasium. The instructor, T. W. McCawley, would have been glad to show you the latest equipment: rowing machines, stationary bicycles and the star attraction, an electric camel, a motorized saddle that imitated a camel’s gait and was said to do wonders for the liver.

McCawley did not survive the voyage. We all know why. For all the attention paid to passenger comfort, the Titanic carried lifeboats for only about half the people aboard, and a little before midnight on April 14, she met an iceberg.

Had the ship’s planners spent an evening treading water in the North Atlantic, they might have weighed electric camels against lifeboats a little differently.

The electric camels of HR

I think about that gym whenever I sit through an HR software demo.

A lot of HR products are built by people who have never had to defend a termination. They’re polished and well-funded, and they lead with the electric camels: slick onboarding flows, engagement surveys, culture dashboards, benefits portals. Nice to have. Some of it may even be good for the liver.

But think about the day it actually matters. You’re across the table from an EDD hearing officer, answering a Civil Rights Department complaint, or sitting on a witness stand. Nobody in that room cares how delightful your onboarding was. They want to know what happened, when it happened, who was told and whether they signed. The aggrieved employee is your iceberg. Your documentation is the lifeboat.

Nobody in a hearing room has ever asked to see your onboarding animation.

Why the lifeboats get skipped

Why don’t more HR tools focus on the unglamorous fundamentals, like documenting incidents as they happen, tracking the training and licenses each employee needs, and getting write-ups signed? Because the people who build them haven’t had their decisions routinely second-guessed by employees, senior management, regulators and litigators. They’ve never been dumped into the cold water of a lawsuit over a decision they got right.

So, like the Titanic’s promoters with their “practically unsinkable” pitch, they lean on hype and novelty, when what an employer actually needs is a lifeboat and a crew that knows how to launch it.

A simple test for any HR tool

Before you buy anything, ask one question: will this help me defend a decision two years from now?

• Does it record incidents with dates, times, witnesses and photos, at the time they happen?
• Does it keep write-ups with signatures from the employee and the managers involved?
• Does it show one employee’s whole history in order, with who recorded each entry?
• Does it track the training, permits and licenses each person needs, and show you what’s lapsing?
• Can you hand the whole file to your attorney in one piece?

If the answer is mostly no, you’re looking at an electric camel.

We built the lifeboat first

HR PaperTrail was built by managers who’ve grazed an iceberg or two and spent enough time in the water to have no interest in going back. It starts with the fundamentals, incidents, signed write-ups, licenses and requirements, and a timeline for every employee, and does them well. It isn’t trying to be the shiniest machine in the gym.

But like the lifeboats the Titanic didn’t carry, it only helps if it’s on board before you need it.