New to HR - Unsure of Action to Take
vcgsi
1 Post
Our firm is relatively young and small and we are learning
to take on new duties as we grow. My new duties are to manage human
resources. Recently an administrative person volunteered to purchase some
suites for one of our Sr. partners. She did this on her own time without
company resources, however, she was talking openly about it to other
administrative staff and the Sr. partner mentioned it to our President.
The President did not feel this was appropriate and said so to the sr.
partner. Also, it was made known to me in confidence by another
administrative person that they felt this was inappropriate and it made them
uncomfortable. I talked with the President about this and he talked again
to the sr. partner about the fact that it made other administrative staff
uncomfortable and that they should either keep this to themselves or not do it
at all. This could have been the end of the incident, however, the sr.
partner called the administrative person (the one who was uncomfortable with
the incident - we are small so he knew who it was) and told them they did not
need to run to HR every time they are uncomfortable about something and that
this person should give him, as a sr. owner in the company, the benefit of the
doubt. This person was totally blindsided and felt she did not get an
opportunity to explain herself, not to mention her confidentiality had been
violated. I feel the sr. partner overstepped and should not have called
the administrative person directly but should have left it alone. I am totally
lost as to how to proceed. Should I just leave it alone? Or was there a
violation on the sr. partners part?
Comments
Generally in any type of case such as this where a complaint is made and needs to be investigated, one of the things HR must learn to do is to NEVER promise confidentiality. While you should try to keep as much confidential as possible, often in the course of an investigation, you can't. You must talk to witnesses, you must talk to both the complaintant and the person who was complained about. And if you are a small company, it is even worse.
I guess I don't understand why the purchase (did you mean suits?) made other AA's uncomfortable..Is there a company policy forbidding AA's to do personal errands for their bosses? Because I know many who have a policy and others where AA's do personal errands.
It sounds like the President handled it correctly by speaking with the Sr Partner if he had an issue with it. It would have been best if the Sr Partner had left it alone. But he wasn't violating any laws to speak with her about it. At this point, as HR, I would leave it alone. The longer it keeps going, the larger and more out of hand a relatively small-to-start-with-issue gets.
While I agree with HRforME that in this instance it is probably best to let it lay, some HR education for sr partners seems to be needed. While the sr partner did not violate any laws, they did not show good judgment and use a best business practice. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
I think that you just showed your ee's that if they talk to HR about something involving a sr partner you can be reprimanded for it. While this is not a true reprimand, I guarantee that your ee saw it as one, even though it has no effect on their employment record. The comment of (they) "should give him, as a sr. owner in the company, the benefit of the doubt." is also troublesome to me that it possibly says to the ee that if you are a sr. partner your word will always be given more weight if there is an issue.
Since you know that this will get around the office, I wonder if other AA will feel they can not report issues with a sr partner without repercussions.
[quote user="vcgsi"] Our firm is relatively young and small and we are learning to take on new duties as we grow. My new duties are to manage human resources. Recently an administrative person volunteered to purchase some suites for one of our Sr. partners. She did this on her own time without company resources, however, she was talking openly about it to other administrative staff and the Sr. partner mentioned it to our President. The President did not feel this was appropriate and said so to the sr. partner. Also, it was made known to me in confidence by another administrative person that they felt this was inappropriate and it made them uncomfortable. I talked with the President about this and he talked again to the sr. partner about the fact that it made other administrative staff uncomfortable and that they should either keep this to themselves or not do it at all. This could have been the end of the incident, however, the sr. partner called the administrative person (the one who was uncomfortable with the incident - we are small so he knew who it was) and told them they did not need to run to HR every time they are uncomfortable about something and that this person should give him, as a sr. owner in the company, the benefit of the doubt. This person was totally blindsided and felt she did not get an opportunity to explain herself, not to mention her confidentiality had been violated. I feel the sr. partner overstepped and should not have called the administrative person directly but should have left it alone. I am totally lost as to how to proceed. Should I just leave it alone? Or was there a violation on the sr. partners part?[/quote]
To be honest, assuming this is about suits (clothing) and not suites (such as apartments, multi bedroom hotel rooms, or furniture arrangements), the initiating event sounds like a bunch of mother hens flapping about throwing around the "uncomfortable" word. So someone did some shopping for someone else. If it was treated as A Big Deal, and it sounds like it was, then I think that was a mistake. That being said, your Sr. Partner's interference with the open door policy that I assume you have in place truly is a big deal. The open door policy exists so that employees who go to the EEOC cannot claim they didn't know who to talk to or that they had exhausted their administrative means. As soon as the open door policy is undermined by powerful people in the organization intimidating complainants, its value is gone. I think if you explain that to the business leaders, they may take what the Sr. Partner did rather seriously.
Part of HR is drama management. I think the initial event was drama and it should have been squelched rather than amplified and escalated.