Back to Dear Lucy homepage
‘How do I get rid of my lazy and incompetent HR director?’
September 25, 2008
I have a problem with my HR director, who is a perfect nightmare. I inherited her from my predecessor and find she is not only lazy and incompetent but has alienated her team and her (talented) number two has just quit. She takes an inordinate amount of sick leave, claiming that the job is “stressful”. Clearly I need to get rid of her but she knows the rule book inside out and has a litigious frame of mind. She is from an ethnic minority and, though born to middle-class Indian parents, appears to believe that life has discriminated against her. She views me, a white male, as a personal affront. What do I do?
Chief executive, male, 51
Lucy’s Answer
You must decide if you want to spend management time sorting this out or whether to lavish money on it instead.
In the first case, you need to manage her downfall actively, setting clear performance targets and monitoring her failure to meet them. Then, when you finally fire her, she won’t be able to claim unfair dismissal.
There are three problems with this approach: you will have to put up with her laziness and incompetence for quite a while longer; it will eat up a lot of your time; and – worst – she might well end up suing you anyway on discrimination grounds.
If you are in the UK, the law makes the employer guilty until proven innocent: the onus is on you to prove that you did not discriminate against her. This can be quite tricky, especially if most of your senior people are white males and if you have not insisted on everyone attending diversity awareness courses.
You can risk it, but you need to think not just of the cost but of how bad the newspaper headlines might look.
If I were you I would deal with the problem quietly by throwing money at it now. It does not sound as if she is enjoying the job much at present. It is either making her ill or making her skive, neither of which are good. Her new boss is unsympathetic and possibly sexist and racist and seems to have it in for her. Her team are awful and her number two has just quit.
Call a meeting with her and offer her a fortune to go.
If for some bizarre reason she turns this down there is always the special projects option. Pay her to do a hugely grand-sounding yet utterly peripheral job where she has no one reporting to her. And then tempt the brilliant number two back into the number one slot.
You could do the brave thing and sack her or try the bureaucratic solution to these problems — move her sideways on a special project which has a short deadline and budget. It’s not ideal, but at least gets her out of a key role. Then your new HR director can sack her!
Posted by: AW, female, Director, 37 | September 25th, 2008 at 5:35 am | Report this commentI presume you have KPIs in place to ensure she has performed against each indicator? If not, set her a 6 weeks target against each, with measureable outcomes. Both sign off on each and have weekly meetings with her to discuss progress. After 6 meetings, if she does not come good tell her the score. Also, get feedback on your style too. If you are clear that you are doing the right thing for your busness, then you need not fear the law. Call her bluff if she is still under-achieving, read up on the employment law and remember, the law is there for the employer as well as the employee. Do not bring culture, ethinicity into it and remain focused on her skills and not personal traits. You too modify your behaviour and work towards a win/win outcome. You may be giving her the vibes: “how can I get rid of her”? Change your first premise and you will see the outcome change. Work out an amicable way out she might be happy to take a golden handshake. Communicate.
Posted by: KH | September 25th, 2008 at 6:51 am | Report this commentCall your lawyer to talk about your options and decide which strategy you want to implement. Maybe you can assess the cost of the following options and choose the one which is more efficient for you : 1) you buy her out now or 2) you wait until you have a case to fire her.
As for the personal / ethnic aspects, I try not to let them interfere (which is not always easy!).
Posted by: coco, 36, male, COO | September 25th, 2008 at 9:30 am | Report this commentAs a new Chief Executive you need to understand your role. The organisation is looking to you for clear leadership, and the board is looking for results.
Notions of lazyness and competence, even alienating her team, are secondary to the main issue - does she fit in your vision. Obviously she does not, so she has to go, but I wonder about your reasoning.
Just because facts occur together does not mean they are related. As a Chief Executive you will know this. There is no casual relationship between being a middle class Indian and feeling that life has discriminated either for or against you. Neither is it necessarily connected that you are white and she feels that you are an affront. Nor does lazyness necessarily mean you cannot be effective - unless you are are a bricklayer.
So she has to go. How to go about it without ending up in court for unfair discrimination, either because she is sick, incompetent, or from an ethnic minority?
I suspect that her incompetence and racism are not sufficiently obvious - except to you - that these grounds will stand up in court. Otherwise you could just tell her to clear her desk and leave within the hour.
Therefore, getting her to leave is going to cost. I would be inclined to take the slow road - insist that she takes a 12 month leave with full or half pay to sort out her stress problems once and for all. Meanwhile you can bring in an HR director or consultant to get your HR job done.
She could refuse, but if she does you would have cause to challenge your own judgement about her lazy nature. Then you can take one of the other obvious options: reorganisation, 360 degree appraisals, exit interviews, special projects, KPI pressure, etc.
Assuming she accepts her sabbatical, you have a year to sort out a superb HR function in which, unfortunately for her, she no longer fits. Any golden handshake will be modest - after all you behaved as a sympathetic employer and by accepting the sabbatical she also accepted that she was stressed out.
My advice: forget about racism, competence, lazyness, alienation. Instead concentrate on meeting your own goals, otherwise you will be reflecting in 12 months time on how the board is going to get rid of you.
Chris J, Male, 56, VP
Posted by: Chris J | September 25th, 2008 at 9:49 am | Report this commentWithout knowing what jurisdiction you are in it’s difficult to give very definite advice. If you are writing in with this problem though presumably you are somewhere where the government thinks they know how to run companies better than their managers, so you can’t simply give notice without stating cause.
First thing though, as a manager you should know all the laws related to your business. Even if she knows the law inside out she can’t do anything as long as you read it yourself and make sure not to break it. When you finish that, start reading the tax law, health and safety law and consumer protection law as applicable.
Secondly, presumably the law of your country/state won’t oblige you to support a sick person indefinitely, after a while they must become the responsibility of the state or the social security organisation. I would suggest you find out where the limit is and encourage her to go over it.
Thirdly, the ethnic thing isn’t an issue and your question doesn’t make it seem as if you think it should be. I suspect you are afraid that she will make it an issue. Simply never, ever give the impression to anyone that you have noticed she is not white.
Fourthly, be very careful about saying anything about absences or stressing her in any way until you know your complete strategy. Performance targets could be seen as stressing her. Probably you are going to go for a) we need to hire someone else because you are sick too much and the limit in the law is x days, or if that is not possible b) we are not happy with the quality of your work. You might get in trouble if you mix a) and b) together with something like “you are sick more often than we like and there are some problems with your work, so ciao”. If you have been heard mentioning that you think she’s sick too often but you give the reason as quality of work then it could be difficult.
If neither a) nor b) are practical, what I would suggest for option c) is to agree with her that the job is “stressful” and tell her that you care about her and that you want to split her role. Make her co-HR-director with someone else and have the same measureable targets and assesment criteria for both. Whenever she is sick then give her jobs to the other person. This should lead to an immediate improvement in the quality of the work of that department, the only remaining problem being that you have an extra person on the payroll doing nothing.
When it becomes clear that the job can be done by one person, suggest cutting it down again. One things you can use to justify your decision on who to keep could be a 360 degree review (on which she would presumably do badly, if she is the kind of person who provokes people into leaving) or alternatively, make her interview for the unified position explaining why she thinks she can do the whole job without getting stressed this time round.
As an aside, my first paragraph might provoke some people, but remember this person’s special protected status as a litigious person has forced out the non-litigious and therefore unprotected number two, who should have been doing her job.
One other thing that might be interesting would be to take your predecessor out for lunch and informally ask him for advice. Either he will think it is possible to manage her and get work out of her, or he will agree that she needs to go.
Posted by: Samec, 30 | September 25th, 2008 at 10:29 am | Report this commentHave you raised the performance concerns? Poor performance management is at the heart of many discrimination claims. If you were to dismiss and had no “paper trail” showing that you had addressed these concerns then you might have difficulty proving that the true reason was performance. This is often made all the more difficult by misleadingly positive appraisals.
If the employee is dismissed in these circumstances then she has every chance of showing that performance is not a credible reason for dismissal and that there must be another true reason which in the absence of any other evidence will be accepted to be the discrimination she alleges. She may or may not genuinely believe this.
She is then likely to win her claim or at least negotiate a sizeable pay off, particularly if your company has a poor track record on diversity.
James, 46, male, employment lawyer (who regularly acts for both claimants and employers in discrimination claims)
Posted by: James Davies | September 25th, 2008 at 10:36 am | Report this commentI disagree with Chris J - incompetence is a very good reason to get rid of someone! It’s wimps who can’t deliver critical feedback, especially in performance reviews, who make it very difficult to manage out poor performers when this is necessary.
Posted by: April, 26, L&D Consultant | September 25th, 2008 at 11:43 am | Report this commentFear of taking action does nothing but postpones the inevitable and makes everyone feel miserable until something does happen. You will either continue to lose talented staff, you will leave, or she will; the most direct and beneficial is helping her find other opportunities. It is your responsibility as a corporate director to effectively manage the staff.
Perhaps a “discipline” approach is the wrong way to approach your dilemma. You are new in the role so there should be no surprise if you bring in your own senior leadership team. Bring in a formerly acceptable HR Director that you were associated with, sit down with your problem child advising her that she does not fit in to your future plans, give her a RIF package which includes an agreement not to file suit and be done with the shrew.
Nothing wrong with being honest and direct. Best of luck.
Posted by: Gary, 51, M, Sr Mgr | September 25th, 2008 at 1:39 pm | Report this commentYou’re assuming an awful lot about how she feels. How do you know she believes life has discriminated against her? How do you know she finds your race and gender a personal affront? Perhaps it’s your thinly veiled racism and patronising mysogyny that she finds offensive; I can sympathise.
If you are unhappy with her standard of work then, as someone has already suggested, schedule a review with her and set out some objectives to be achieved within a time scale you are both happy with and which can be measured impartially. Review again after the agreed period and if she is failing to measure up to scratch, you have a valid reason to begin discussions about her ability to do the job.
Posted by: Emily | September 25th, 2008 at 2:29 pm | Report this commentGet her out. I think, from what has been said that you have a strategic case to get rid of her. How closely will you have to work with her? Could you send to a far flung out post to undertake an initiative that she will have no hope of ever succeeding at? Can you find someone to sit along side her as part of a re-structure until her position is untenable? What does the solicitor say as well? They probably have a close relationship through her litigious fervour so you’ll probably have to hire external council in order to smooth the wheels for her exit. The other thing to consider is her sick leave: did she take enough to fire her for that. Any way that’s my tuppence ha’penny and hope it helps.
Posted by: Gerry Hill | September 25th, 2008 at 2:51 pm | Report this commentYour key issue here is an underperforming employee - the rest, her ethnicity, knowledge of employment law and litigious attitude are just details, albeit ones you need to be mindful of.
Therefore, you should approach this as you would with any other performance issue (and since you have been made a CEO, I would like to think you know something about managing people’s performance).
As you are a new CEO, people will likely know all about the HR Director already and will be watching to see how you handle the situation. If you want to be seen as a decent boss, be fair but without being a soft touch.
Your starting point should be to invest time and money in good employment law advice so that you know your options, then formulate a well thought-out plan which takes account of how things might pan out - starting with setting objectives for her and finishing either with her raising her game to an acceptable level or you having to let her go for poor performance.
Once you have an action plan for your current HR Director, you will also need to consider how you bring in the right person as a replacement.
Posted by: Tom, FD, male, 37 | September 25th, 2008 at 2:57 pm | Report this commentPromote her to a qualitative job where she would do some less stressing internal consultancy assessment (of your company HR practices for example) and replace her as the head of her team, calling back the talentive former number 2 if possible. It should save you from too much hassles…
Posted by: Blandine, female, 30, analyst | September 25th, 2008 at 3:11 pm | Report this commentTermination time.
Posted by: Brian | September 25th, 2008 at 3:17 pm | Report this commentGet a good lawyer and dismiss her immediately. It sounds as though any potential action by her would be incompetent and poorly executed, that is if she can be bothered to get her lazy rear end out of her sick bed.
Posted by: Mr T, VIP, UK | September 25th, 2008 at 3:46 pm | Report this commentI would talk to the previous CEO and her number 2 who quit about this situation to start with. Try to be objective, although it sounds as though that may be a tall order.
Posted by: Mel | September 25th, 2008 at 3:53 pm | Report this commentAs many have pointed out - HR can work for you as well as the employee - so you will need a decent HR consultant, and I would ask them along to both meetings.
I would also invite her to discuss what she finds ’stressful’ about the job (without bringing up her sickness) - just to ensure there are no greater personal issues before you feel you need to get serious about the issue.
There is nothing worse than taking a disciplinary path, only to find your member of staff felt they could not talk to you and actually has viable reasons to take time off.
In all honesty - you just have to cover our bases, and it sounds like this may well be a painful drawn out situation. You have to give her every option to talk to you, confide in you and then you can get an HR consultant in to slowly cut the cord so to speak!
You need to act quickly before he cancer spread to the rest of the organization. I would:
1. Demote her to “manager or associate” status.
2. Find the prior no 2 and re-employ her/he the new HR Director.
This will make her quit really quick.
Per Sjofors, 53, CEO, Los Angles
Posted by: Per Sjofors | September 25th, 2008 at 4:29 pm | Report this commentGet a good headhunter who can find you a excellent replacement who is also an Asian female (disabled, gay single parent preferred). A round of 360 feedback should give you enough to fire her or “layer” her. Even if she then sues for wrongful dismissal the payout should be manageable.
Banker, male, 47
Posted by: David | September 25th, 2008 at 9:27 pm | Report this commentI have dealt with this situation.
Tell her that, in view of the departure of her #2, you have lost confidence in her ability to lead in her function. In light of that, give her a choice. Offer her the opportunity to resign, if she feels unable to function effectively knowing that her CEO has lost confidence in her. Or, if she would prefer, give her the opportunity to continue in her current function, but no longer in a direct reporting relationship to you.
Ideally, you would expand your General Counsel’s job to include HR and have her report to the lawyer(most general counsels think they’re capable of handling broader administrative functions). There is no one in your organization better situated to build a book for a litigation free dismissal than your general counsel.
If you don’t have a general counsel, saddle your CFO with this problem, but make sure he’s got a lawyer telling him what to do.
Resign yourself to two things. First, you have to take control of your conversation with her. It’s not a discussion. She may quit on the spot and sue you. But if she does, she’ll do so having resigned. Which is to your advantage, at least within your organization.
Second, if she doesn’t, it’s going to take three months, minimum, to get this done. But there’s the old saying that sh-t rolls downhill, and at least it’s off your plate in the interim.
Posted by: Dwight | September 26th, 2008 at 4:06 am | Report this comment@April
I fully agree with you that incompetence is solid ground for dismissal - as long as you can prove it. This is where it gets complicated. Someone who has been promoted to and held down a director level job is not by normal definitions “incompetent”. As you imply, she probably also has a stack of annual appraisals which tell what a wonderful person she is.
In this case, and many others, a main objective is to stay out of court. The judiciary is both unpredictable and expensive. It is always time-consuming.
The world of management teams is littered with people who are incompetent in some respects. The art of being a CEO is to understand and leverage the strengths and weaknesses. The only unforgiveable sin is disloyalty and, I suspect, this is the root of the problem here. He just does not trust her.
Posted by: Chris J | September 26th, 2008 at 9:16 am | Report this commentChris J, 56, Male, VP
As a CEO you should be able to make this kind of decision yourself without hand-holding from strangers who know nothing about your business or you.
Posted by: Kaiser | September 26th, 2008 at 10:44 am | Report this commentYou know sometimes I think that I am surrounded by incompetent and lazy people. Kipling would have called it the smart man’s burden. I recently learned about this creative problem solving technique called Triz. It’s all about finding contradictions and using them as a starting point to solve problems.
I see a contradiction here. You say that you HR-director is incompetent, yet she is clearly competent enough to keep to avoid screwing up so badly that she looses her job. I have had plenty of people work for me who are competent at being incompetent. They are the worst, they are virtually unflushable, and messing with minorities is never a good idea. I learned that the hard way when I was transferred from the New York office after firing my native american secretary. I refused to apologise. Meritocracy is just how I roll.
What I pick up from Triz though is that if she is competently incompetent you have to target the area in which she is competent. The secret to sacking somebody and winning the wrongful dismissal suit is really easy, you need documentation. I remember this unflushable employee I had, kept showing up at ten in the morning and leaving the office at eight (that’s really lazy in the banking business). He kept getting away with it because he was really good in meetings with clients. But he had one weakness, he was totally dependent on powerpoint and too lazy to prepare back-up slides. I took a baseball bat to his computer before the meeting, whilst he was in the toilet, and he choked. His presentation was a mess and my videorecording of it, ensured a speedy exit.
Posted by: Stellan Sjögreen, Banker 39 | September 26th, 2008 at 12:30 pm | Report this commentBest of Luck
Well,
I read about this problem while flying from Germany to Dubai, and decided to reply for the first time in my life.
One can easily notice the smell of racisim in the way the problem was presented. We feel now that the information given tells us more about her as a person rather than her inability to perform. The points raised are very subjective and reflects the point of view of the CEO only, but we do not know the HR Director’s idea about his accusations. So, she…
a-”is a perfect nightmare” (So, do you see her in your dreams?)
b-”is an inheritence” (So, you prefer to bring in someone from your old team?)
c-”has alienated her team…” (So, how do we know if number two has left because of her?)
d-”takes an inordinate….” (So, let us just hire men who have no ‘periods’)
e-”claims that the job is stressful” (Did you ever wonder if you were the source of her stress?)
f-”is from an ethnic minority…” (RACISIM RACISIM RACISIM, what else can I say?)
g-”appears to believe that life…” (So, how did you see that? was it on her face? or she told you in your nightmare dreams?)
h-”views me…” (Again, how do you know and judge this point?)
Still, I might have to say that you could be right. However, I would like to put myself in her shoes and try to rewrite the problem in her own words:
“I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH MY CEO, WHOM I AM AFRAID FROM. HE JOINED THE COMPANY AFTER THE CEO, WHO APPOINTED ME, HAS LEFT. HE IS ALWAYS COMPLAINING ABOUT MY JOB TO OTHERS IN THE COMPANY, UNTIL MY (TALENTED) NUMBER TWO HAS LEFT ME. WE WERE GOOD FREINDS, BUT SHE COULD NOT TAKE THE PRESSURES OF THE NEW CEO. I STARTED TAKING LONGER SICK LEAVES (AT LEAST DURING MY PERIODS), WHICH HELPED ME TO ABSORB THE STRESS FROM HIM. I AM UNABLE TO LEAVE LIKE NUBMER TWO. FIRST, I LOVE MY JOB. SECOND, I NEED IT FINANCIALLY. I FEEL THAT I AM NEXT. HE WANTS TO GET RID OF ME. EVERYDAY, I LOOK AT MY EMAILS WONDERING, IF HE HAS SENT ME A TERMINATION NOTICE. I AM WORRIED ABOUT MY JOB AND WONDER EVERYDAY, IF MY ETHNIC ORIGINS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH HIS ATTITUDE TOWARDS ME. I ORIGINATE FROM A MIDDLE CLASS FAMILY WITH GOOD EDUCATION (THE REASON I HAVE MY CURRENT JOB). AS AN HR DIRECTOR, I HAVE LEARNED TO DEAL WITH ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE FROM ALL NATIONALITIES, GENDORS, AND SOCIAL FRAMEWORKS. MY PROBLEM IS THAT I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO HANDLE THE NEW CEO AND AM VERY AFRAID TO LOOSE MY JOB. WHAT SHOULD I DO.”
Bassam Yamout
Posted by: Bassam Yamout,38,male,director | September 26th, 2008 at 1:07 pm | Report this commentI am going to take the assumption that you are correct that her team are unhappy; but do get their complaints and issues formalised. If there is a problem (with her) you must get rid. I have been in the position of having a director who was always off sick (actually she was an alcoholic, which is sad but not something the team should shoulder) was never there and her attitude bred huge resentment. The focus was not on ‘doing the job’ but ‘why the hell am I doing her job for her, for less money, while taking on the stress’. You have multi-responsibilities - your HR Director is one; but the rest of the team and the business and all other employees effected by this are also your responsibilities and must come first.
Posted by: noname | September 26th, 2008 at 4:00 pm | Report this commentDid Stellan really just use the phrase “That’s how I roll”??!
Posted by: Emily | September 26th, 2008 at 4:17 pm | Report this commentShe has you pegged as a pigeon. You moult each time you meet. Show her you can pluck her feathers, then set her free in the park.
Posted by: Wes Pedersen | September 27th, 2008 at 2:25 pm | Report this commentI don’t agree with the people who think it’s impossible for you to know if someone thinks life has discriminated against them. Very often such a person will talk of little else, so the chances are that she has said this directly. If this is correct then he is right to be afraid that she will call discrimination if he tries to do anything. As I said before, be colour-blind, pretend she is white and never give the person anything to build a case from.
I am (as usual) lucky with this. I also have a female British Indian employee, but my one was forced into and escaped from an arranged marriage back in India. It could be argued that life has discriminated against her, but she just gets on with her job, which she is very good at. It does tend to be the middle classes (of any race) who have an entitlement culture, so I don’t know why he is surprised that the two things have gone together here.
If you are still stuck after all this advice, why not ask her for advice? After all, it’s an HR problem. Simply say to her that you have heard she is finding the job stressful and ask her to propose solutions.
Posted by: Samec, 30 | September 27th, 2008 at 4:03 pm | Report this commentThe critical consideration is, “How long do you have?” The best way is probably the direct way, which is to show a record of poor performance (either on one project or several). But that’ll take time. If you don’t have that time, you’re playing a slightly dicier game. She’ll probably see through any attempts to place authority with somebody else, and that may have unintended consequences.
You should consider the possibility that she herself is unhappy in the job. Send somebody else to discover her further complaints about the job. Once you’ve discovered the source of the discontent engage a headhunter to find her a less stressful or more rewarding position outside the company. If your intelligence is good, your hand is concealed and everyone comes out ahead.
Posted by: Kyle, Consultant, 27 | September 27th, 2008 at 4:54 pm | Report this commentDocument everything she does for a month and then confront her publically. With luck she’ll loose it and you can dismiss her instantly. She will sue but you have to establish your authority, why do you think you are being paid - to avoid tough decisions?
Posted by: Gethin, Male 52, Director | September 28th, 2008 at 9:11 am | Report this commentEasy solution - kick her up as Sr Director of Change Management and Re-engineering on a marginally higher pay and a visibly larger office. And also rethink whether you or the company really needs a HR director ?
Posted by: Out of the box, 45 | September 28th, 2008 at 2:58 pm | Report this commentWhy has everyone ignored the basic rule of EOC? If she was a white 50-year-old white British male, would she deserve the sack? The data says “yes”. It seems as if “he” would already have been sacked.
Posted by: John | September 28th, 2008 at 11:30 pm | Report this commentSo ask her the procedures for sacking an executive, then go through the correct ones (having also asked an employment lawyer and queried every point on which they differ)
Bassam Yamout sounds paranoid - the HR person is not bad because she is an Indian female but because she does not do her job properly and the problem is replacing her despite her being an Indian female so the employer has to PROVE non-discrimination. Very, very few women (none that I know) take sick leave for periods, so that is a ridiculous “red herring”
Personnell decisions and actions are one of the most important tasks of every successfull leader. If you don’t manage to get rid of this negative person, you don’t qualify as a good CEO.
Posted by: Frank Gerlach | September 29th, 2008 at 12:23 am | Report this commentYou should know where to get help to accomplish the goal of removing her quickly. Hire a personnel professional who terminated a large number of similar people before. He will advise you what to do and how much it will cost. The cost of in-action will be your own job on the long run.
Give her precise, demanding targets. If she doesn’t meet the targets, keep documenting, then ask her to quit next year when you’ve got enough ammo.
In the meantime be really nice to her. Maybe she’ll become a motivated and good colleague and stop skiving off sick if she no longer has the feeling that everyone hates her.
Posted by: Bex, 35, Female, Civil Servant | September 29th, 2008 at 12:06 pm | Report this commentLet’s ignore the racism/sexism thing. There will ever be a position where everyone agrees.
You have to ignore also the ’should I sack her or encourage her’ thing. Your job is not to hand hold senior people or to do the sacking or re training thing.
your job is to build a successful company. As a CEO you know that you can’t do everything yourself so you have to build a strong team that you are able to rely upon.
You can’t rely upon your HR director and are clearly worried that something else may come out of the woodwork.
My suggestion is that you take the bull by the horns and have a sit down and an adult chat with her. Does she want to be part of the team or not? If not then pay her off - it’ll be the cheapest way.
If she wants to be part of your trusted reliable team then she has to shape up.
simple as.
Posted by: Stuart - FD | September 29th, 2008 at 12:12 pm | Report this commentI have seen this work numerous times. Headhunting. The role of a good headhunter is to seek good people and motivate them, via a phone chat, to consider making a move to a new firm. Obviously only one person gets the role, but often 1 or 2 others they speak to will have questioned their career and current prospects for growth. Very often it is being called by a headhunter that first makes a manager get his/her CV out there.
You can engage a private headhunter to target your probelm HRD, and it will drastically increase the probability of her leaving for pastures new. This in conjunction with some of the advice above (making it clear you do not consider her contribution to merit a place in a trusted management team) would be worthwhile, fast, and wouldn’t cost much. Good luck,
Posted by: Ben, 34, MD, Male, Recruitment Services | September 29th, 2008 at 1:46 pm | Report this commentNo personal affront intended, but you don’t seem to understand your position within the company. Your responsibility is to define goals and provide direction. Your policies ,procedures and expectations should have been outlined and presented to your staff at the onset. It seems to me you have instead become a pawn in some office politics that proceeded your administration. I found it interesting that your story mentions lazy, incompetence, economic status and racial identities. It does not however give any details of her inability to accomplish assigned task. If this is a real story, and I don’t believe that it is, your only recourse is to send any proposals through corporate legal it’s thier job not yours.
Posted by: chase | September 29th, 2008 at 2:31 pm | Report this commentHi,
very simple advice for you Mr CEO. We all come across such situations and need to deal with it purely on business logic and needs irrespective of caste, religion or race which in todays flat world has little bearing as we all are expected to deliver results.
Hence if you have a Balance score card approach towards your company’s goals and your HR director is not meeting them - for any reason which could range from laziness to not having good people management skills, you must insist that same is met or exceeded with expectations on behaviours also being met. Once you state this clearly, you will either find a change or you will find the lady trying to play some game or indulge in some politics. This is the time for you to lay down the benchmarks for performance and monitor results with the same. If the results are not positive she has to leave.
Posted by: Sandeep Deshpande | September 29th, 2008 at 2:39 pm | Report this commentI would be very careful regarding all the advice you have been give, you do not want to fall into the constructive dismissal trap. If she is the type of person you think she is it might be wise to use her by setting her the task of developing KPI’s. Once this is done you then apply them to her performance and when she does not perform you can start the process, albeit a long one, of formal proceedings. If you are lucky she will get fed up and leave, if not you may be rid of her within a year without a law suit. If you do go down this route be sure to apply the same parameters to all the other staff in her department or she may get you for discrimination. Of course you could just make her redundant, it may prove cheaper in the long run, you have to consider the strain someone like this puts on the rest of the company, not to mention yourself. There is one other thing, if you are loosing staff as a direct result of her, you may be able to get staff to sign an affidavit stating her as the main reason for their resignation during exit interviews, several of these could be enough evidence to dismiss her.
Posted by: Steven | September 29th, 2008 at 2:43 pm | Report this commentMake all your HR operation redundant.
This avoids any risk of being accused of discrimination and you will find your business does much better without them.
Posted by: Merlin | September 29th, 2008 at 3:26 pm | Report this commentRestructure your operation so she reports to Finance. Stop inviting her to management meetings.
Posted by: Peter | September 29th, 2008 at 7:30 pm | Report this commentIf she has the self-image you suspect, she won’t like being on the third level.
As a precaution introduce new performance monitors and build up, after the change of structure, documentation of poor performance caused, sadly, by her inability to work in a level where she does not feel important.
DO a 360 feedback exercise on her.
Check that your own view is that of others in the organisation.
Present her with the resultant report and have a conversation.
Posted by: Nick Jefferson | September 29th, 2008 at 9:37 pm | Report this comment> Did Stellan really just use the phrase “That’s how I roll”??!
Martin Lukes - welcome back!
Posted by: JJ | September 29th, 2008 at 10:37 pm | Report this commentFind out how much it would cost to fire her
(1) tomorrow based on the poor performance evidenced to date;
(2) after a period of performance review with targets etc. which are not met (one presumes that the relationship is still solid enough to bring her back into the fold if she starts to perform again).
Tell her about about your options and do not dither. Give her the team talk and if she is not prepared to pull her weight, give her the bullet (how you do it and how much it will cost you is all part of a sophisticated negotiation that your (1) legal adviser plus a (2) trusted old friend can help you in striking the balance. Whatever you do, get to a decision quickly and follow through. By being decisive (but fair) in her case, you are sending a message to the rest of your organisation that you do not muck about and are more interested in leading a winning team than getting caught up in this sort of BS.
Posted by: james, 35, Male, senior legal counsel | September 29th, 2008 at 11:13 pm | Report this commentsue her for sexual harassment!
WM - Director
Posted by: mm | September 29th, 2008 at 11:23 pm | Report this commentYou can’t win for losing in this type of situation it seems.
Promote her to another position if your firm is big enough. Special assignments? She may work out wonderfully, or fall flat on her face and the situation will take care of itself? Good luck - I would rather adopt someone than manage people again myself!
Posted by: Jeff Champlin | September 30th, 2008 at 12:09 am | Report this commentI am with Stellen and Ben. If this is a real story then you need to take a look in the mirror.
As a CEO your role is to inspire and motivate. It seems to me that you have a problem dealing with employees that “you did not hire”.
Falling back on genericisims of laziness and ethnicity to make a case makes you look weak.
I would propose to the audience that the issue could be with you and your leadership.
Perhaps her only fault is that as the HR director - you got hired.
Folks dont be fooled by a wolf in sheeps clothing.
Posted by: take a look in the mirror | September 30th, 2008 at 12:58 am | Report this commentFire her ass. Hire a lawyer and move on with your business. Don’t be a fool. She is costing you and if she should sue you, then so be it. Be more careful in the future about who who hire.
Posted by: puckman the lawyer | September 30th, 2008 at 3:17 am | Report this commentGet a lawyer, make the best case you can and fire her. You may have to pay high severance but seems like it’s worth it.
Posted by: Haim, Male 49, Entrepreneur | September 30th, 2008 at 3:56 am | Report this commentYes, I use the phrase, “how I roll”. When I come home at 2 am, from a hard day’s work, and these days are quite frankly harder than most, I like to unwind by turning on Sky+ and watching my two favourite recorded shows: MTV cribs and Pimp my Ride. They are great! They are like “How to spend it” except on TV and with much cooler stuff. As a non-native speaker with really exceptional linguistic skills, I tend to pick up the venacular, it’s just how I roll.
Posted by: Stellan Sjögreen, Banker 39 | September 30th, 2008 at 9:47 am | Report this commentSlightly off topic but Scott Alexander called (Google him), he wants his persona back.
Posted by: Emily | September 30th, 2008 at 1:14 pm | Report this commentI can see what you mean… in the style of Bros!
Posted by: Mel | September 30th, 2008 at 4:22 pm | Report this commentI agree with Mr Stellan Sjögreen,
You need to get rid of her as she is costing your company money. also if you dont sort out your senior staff, you wont get a decent bonus…so do it quick…
MA, Banker, Student of Banking & Finance, 19.
Posted by: MA | September 30th, 2008 at 4:55 pm | Report this commentYou are the ceo ,it is critical that you have a capable and discrete PA . The risks involved in not resolving this situation quickly are unacceptable to a person at your level and for your company . The best approach is to transfer/reassign her to another knowlegeable senior manager who would provide her with a job description and and key performance indicators measured qtrly .
Posted by: dir plc | September 30th, 2008 at 7:13 pm | Report this commentFailure to meet objectives would result in efforts to correct , if unsuccessful a series of warnings and in due course demotion or dismissal . Get assistance from HR and a lawyer in managing the process .
Does your company really need an HR department? Why don’t you outsource? Problem solved.
Posted by: Melineh, 29, Auditor | September 30th, 2008 at 11:28 pm | Report this commentThe simplest soloutions are the best.
Announce that HR is to be outsourced and that she is to be made redundant, if you are feeling generous give her the opportunity to quote as a contractor.
why is this so easy.. because redunrancy is pain free for you to communicate, cheap in terms of removing her and could save you money if you get a better deal elsewhere.
if she wants to apply for another job in the firm you can prevent that easily enough too.
Posted by: rob,28 banker | October 1st, 2008 at 12:59 pm | Report this commentWhat a profoundly unpleasant bunch of people you are… Most of you seem to work in Finance, and I pleased to see that there is evidence, from the state of the world markets, that your incompetence matches your arrogance. Never mind, as a taxpayer I will soon be owning your businesses and you will all be my slaves - then, it’s not just the HR director who will be fired.
Posted by: Questor Multiplex | October 6th, 2008 at 3:58 pm | Report this commentHR people inevitably have a degree in Social Science. They also have egos the size of a planet. They are the touchiest and feeliest of all the human species, they believe. So, handle this one very carefully. The moment you mention that four-letter word, ‘work’, she’ll be scouring the newspapers for a post somewhere else. Just keep insisting on her doing ‘work’ and set her targets.
Posted by: Mr. McFarlane | October 15th, 2008 at 1:09 pm | Report this commentSack her and damn the consequences. It will cost you, of course, but think of the relief to get rid of the bitch. Sometimes it’s just worth it.
Posted by: M Woolf | October 17th, 2008 at 11:13 am | Report this commentI can’t believe the naive proposals here - have none of you ever had to actually run a business or play hardball? You should be glad you are employees and don’t have to deal with this nonsense.
Get a trusted professional acquaintance from another company to make overtures to her, and offer a ludicrously superior employment package, flatter her abilities etc. Tell him/her to ask your problem employee to an interview. As soon as she attends, call her on her mobile phone and ask where she is. Record the phone call. She will lie and make up some excuse. Arrange in advance for a flunky to photograph her going into the rival institution’s office, and get your acquaintance to confirm that she interviewed there. Voila, you can now fire her for trying to get a better job at a competitor. Racial discrimination my arse.
Posted by: R.Sole | October 20th, 2008 at 11:49 pm | Report this commentQuestor - only idiot morons have lost money in this “crisis”. For any halfway competent entrepreneur or professional, this is the opportunity of a lifetime - assets on sale, competition decimated, the few solvent rival businesses selling for 2 times earnings on AIM ripe for takeover, property down 50%+, stocks back to levels from 10 years ago, share price volatility through the roof. What’s not to like? Even public sector employees can be mocked for their iron-clad job security during recessions whilst the taxpayer and wealth-creators (the 3 or 4 hundred of us that are left and can do our jobs properly ) take it up the arse.
Posted by: R.Sole | October 20th, 2008 at 11:53 pm | Report this comment