How do you handle your mistakes?

HRCalico

We had somewhat of a bumpy transition the first few months that I took over HR from the previous person. She is still with the company, I was just hired to take over HR because she had too many duties (payroll, AP, and others). My biggest difficulty was communicating enrollments when employees became eligible for insurance, or when they made changes. Really, there were three instances - one employee dropped her husband and we didn't decrease her deductions; one employee enrolled and we didn't deduct anything; and one employee added his wife and we didn't increase his deduction. The problem is, these weren't discovered until MUCH later - nearly two years in one instance.

I did of course communicate the enrollments to the insurance company so we were being billed properly, just not deducting properly in-house. Technically, I'm not sure if I didn't tell her or if I told her and she didn't do it - it was long enough ago that there's no way anybody could remember. Most likely, though, I forgot to tell her.

The first employee (dropped husband) is not having anything deducted for the next 20 pay periods or so to balance out what we owe her.

The second employee had his deductions increased for several pay periods so we could recoup what he owed us. He was fine with that.

The third employee said that it wasn't his mistake so he shouldn't have to pay for it. I explained that he had been receiving the benefits without paying for them, so he owed the company. He said something about there being a written contract that I didn't understand, because I said "Yeah, a written contract that you would pay for your wife's dental premium and you haven't been!" I took it to our president, who said that if it was under $100 we'd let it go, otherwise we'd need to increase deductions to recoup the funds. (It was 280 bucks and change.)

I'll admit to getting a bit defensive - when I took over HR, she hadn't completed a single I-9 in the four years she'd been doing HR. I also catch an occastional payroll mistake when I'm checking attendance (not a lot, but a few each year). And, about the time I was making these mistakes (which were not terribly long after I started - things have been better once I got my feet under me), I conducted an audit on the insurance deductions because I discovered an employee had been paying for her daughter's insurance for around a year after daughter graduated from college. That was an external mistake, though - we could only get two months' premium back and it was just too bad for that employee. My mistakes are a pain internally, but our employees haven't been out any money.

So, long post for a short question - how do you handle it when you make mistakes? Please tell me I'm not the only one out there that makes mistakes! :>)

HRQ

I audit our insurance premium payroll deductions monthly when paying the invoices. If (when) we make a mistake, we notify the employee in writing of the mistake and true it up through payroll over one or two pay periods, whether it's a refund or back charges.

Hard to say what we'd do for errors dating back a year or two. With an internal mistake, I suppose I'd probably either credit or back-charge up to two months, then find a way to make sure it doesn't happen again.

We advise employees upon enrollment, and occasionally throughout the year (newletters, memos, etc.) that it is their responsibity to verify the information on their pay stubs, including insurance premiums.

They always seem to notice if we are overcharging them. Rarely notice if we are undercharging them...

HCCADC

No, you are definitely NOT the only one that makes mistakes. I have made plenty since starting my position 3+ years ago. (and still do!) When I find a mistake I admit it and fix it the best that I can and move on. We are all human and none of us are perfect. I think that you need to give yourself a break, learn from it and pat yourself on the back that you are doing a good job! In the beginning it is always easy to make mistakes. That is why most companies have a period of time that they "review" the new employee (We have an "introductory" period where we do an initial performance appraisal with the ee)
Hope this helps! Believe me, mistakes are part of life and will continue to happen regardless of what position you hold in a company.

ray a

Yep, we make the same kind of mistakes. In one instance a few years ago the ee was not having his insurance premiums deducted for about 1.5 years. A clerical oversight when he became eligible for health insurance. Instead of recouping his past deductions we had him reimburse us the amount insurance paid out for his medical care which was several hundred dollars less. We broke even and the ee felt he was treated fairly.

HRCalico

THANK YOU all for letting me know I'm not alone. The third employee above asked me today about cancelling his policy; I told him he could do so but couldn't get back on until the next open enrollment and we would then change his deduction schedule to only the amount that he owes us in back premiums. No response as of yet.

In discussion with the payroll person, I requested she give me copies of the bills so I can look them over each month and hopefully catch any errors. She said that she'll just do it herself each month. We've had some issues with her not being willing to delegate things but complaining of too much to do and putting in an enormous amout of time each week. (sooner or later, she's gonna crack) I can't make her do anything (or not do something), so I just told her I was willing to do it but if she wanted to instead, it was fine with me. And I'm sure she'll let me know if there are any more mistakes. :>)

jitrbug

Nobudy's pierfict...everbudy macs misstakes!!!
It's the rare one's that can catch them (even later), admit them and get them corrected! Once you do that, consider it a lesson learned and you'll probably never let it happen again!
We had a similiar situation happen...we had an ee that left the company and came back 2 months later. That's 2 months that she paid COBRA. Payroll reactivated her file but they failed to hit "enter" on the med bene. We found it when doing a quarterly audit so at that time she was 4 months behind on payment. She said she noticed that she did not have the bene deduct but thought that because the COBRA was so high that we just took all of that to cover her until that ran out. You gotta give her an "A" for creativity but no cigar! We wanted to keep it all in the same bene year so she paid double deducts and got caught up. She was not happy but our alternative to her was to pay for the meds she had done during that period out of her pocket. She added it up and decided double deducts was best! If they sign up for the benefit, then they also understand they have to pay the premium for it.
Now..if the other ee won't delegate the reconciliation to you then either make sure she is aware that she owns the mistakes and if not brought to your attention/corrected, will be dealt with via discip process or reflected on review when found.

pork1

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 01-16-06 AT 04:01PM (CST)[/font][br][br]HRCALICO: Welcome to the world of non-perfect people doing business for them selves or someone else. Mistakes are plentiful and can easily be passed from one to another because most of the time noone person will stand up and be counted.

We basically have one rule for us to have in place: If the error was a company error the company will fix the error and move on. We move on by making sure the ee fully understands the nature of the issues and how they impact on his person or his family. If we can not correct and move on we still must make sure the ee is informed of what went wrong and what we had to do about the circumstance. As previously mentioned we discovered we had some one paying single coverage for family insurance. We were making the premium payments but were not deducting sufficiently. We would not have caught it still today, but, we had a payroll check pop up that had not been cashed for two years ago. We had to get with the ee to ascertain the reason for his non cashed check and what did he intend to do about it. He revealed he had lost it, but did not remember when, where, or how it was lost. Therefore, we had to re-write the check. In this process, we got to the insurance deductable and wondered whether he had single or family coverage. He said family, our records show single which throws all tax information into the issues. We figured it all out and worked up a special check with new tax information because the taxes had already been paid to the appropriate parties.

We forgave the indebtedness for past years and started a new for 2006. We are a private business, so it was our call to have the employee pay for our past sin or not. The General Manager did not want to punish the ee for his failure to let us know that he was getting family coverage for single coverage cost.

We have put into the systems some checks and referrals for action, when we weekly write payroll checks and deductables. Garnishments are, likewise, in this system of checks and referrals for action system.

May we all be Blessed with perfect days and perfect actions. Some are, you know, but not me.

PORK

E Wart

This happens all the time. I don't worry about "who made it" as long as we figure out a way to hopefully not make it again. (I recently found mistakes I had made on employee's 401k on a manual check , reversed the deferral and matching.

I would definitely charge the employee for at least the current plan year's extra premium. If they get upset about it, you can say that they were also aware that there was a change to their coverage and they didn't say a word. (This borders on unethical behavior.)

I do go back as far as I can for giving employee their money back if we make the mistake in our favor. I try to recoup the money for the company if it is in the employee's favor, but may have to limit the amount to be recovered.

Don't worry. This isn't the biggest mistake you will ever make. It didn't cause any physical or emotional harm to anyone and didn't break any laws or cause company to go into bankrupty.
E Wart

njjel

At our company we would more than likely NOT charge the ee for the back premium, but would tell the ee about the error and beging to deduct the correct amount, next pay period. We all make mistakes. Just fix it and move on.

Paul in Cannon Beach

Finally a subject I know ALOT about! My personal belief is you can take responsibility for your mistakes or let others point them out to you.

Admitting mistakes can go a long way to restoring trust. Ultimately, our ee's need to be able to trust us and visa versa.

Some people mistakenly believe that by acknowledging their mistake, they are somehow going to look bad. Its just not true. If anything, people will respect you more that you have the guts to admit when you blew it.

WT

Our bank told me that they did not receive the direct deposit file one week, so I sent it again. However, they put the paychecks into the employee's accounts twice. We had to adjust every direct deposit account. A couple had already spent the money by the next day (when we found out that the deposit had been done twice). What a mess that was. However, the bottom line and what I use to explain to employees is that a mistake by another entity does not entitle anyone to the money. If you find a wallet on the street, it is not your money. If the bank makes a $100 mistake and then finds it, you do not get to keep the money. In fact, it is fraud to try and do so. As long as the mistake is clearly documented and it does not go past the common law statute of six years, you are entitled to collect the money. I would agree as well that for some small amounts, just write it off.

marc

I thought I made a mistake once, but I was wrong.
x;-)

System

xx( Hey! That's my line! Unless I'm mistaken.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

HRH

Yes, these mistakes sound familiar. About a year ago I devised a system to prevent me from making these errors. I've made 3 spreadsheets; one for new hires, one for 90 days (benefits eligibility), and one for terminations. I have them printed and at my fingertips as a reminder, since I use them all the time. I check off each item that needs to be done. For instance my 90 Day Checklist incudes: review by supervisor, faxing health insurance co., faxing life insurance co., making changes in my computer for various files, filling out a payroll change sheet for the ee file, checking the next insurance bills to make sure the changes appear, handing out the insurance information booklets, etc, etc.

Each company's lists will be different, but this exercise has eased the task of remembering to do all these things in each instance. Hope this is helpful to you!

WT

I highly recommend this approach. We also have a list for new hires and a spread sheet to make sure various things happen during the first six months of employment. Whether by legal statute or internal policy, HR has gotten more and more complicated over the last 10 to 15 years. It is not really practical to try and carry all of these things in your head anymore.

lorrie

The 'checklist' type approach is good for preventing this type of thing from happening. You will just have to devise a system between yourself and the payroll office to make sure the communication happens.

I have a notebook that I use to track monthly changes (new hires, terminations, and other status changes) for health ins., life ins., etc. I created a form that has a space for payroll to sign off when a payroll change is needed. At the beginning of each week I lay the sheet on payroll's desk and she signs when the payroll deduction changes are made. That way we have a record of when changes are made, and a checklist to make sure a health insurance change is not made with out a payroll change.

Whatever

If I made mistakes, and I am not saying I do, I use Outlook to keep track of everything.

HRCalico

Yup - I have my Outlook set up to remind me to send out enrollment materials each month and then another reminder to notify the HR department. I think two of my mistakes were changes instead of enrollments, though, which aren't covered by this plan.

I have been thinking a long time about putting together an overall checklist for each employee and keeping them together versus in each file. This should be the push to do that. :>)

Back to my reason for this post - do you use your tasks, too, or just your calendar? I haven't gotten into the tasks because I didn't see much it could do that the calendar couldn't.

HCCADC

I use my tasks. One reason is that we have shared calendars so I do not want other people to see my notes in my calendar. (I realize I could use the "private" box, but like using tasks) There is a sense of accomplishment when you can check a task off! On the other side of that- when it is in red, there is a sense of "oh no, I am behind" The other reason for tasks is that I can see if something does need completed and it is over due. With the calendar, if you are not on that week, you do not see it. Have a good day!

Whatever

I use tasks for projects or anything that must be done by a particular date (i.e. insurance survey).
For something that must be done on a particular date (i.e. give enrolment forms to a new ee) I use the calendar.