Stephen Harvard Davis

Maria has been informed that a member of staff has complained that a disciplinary meeting conducted by Maria did not follow the ACAS code of conduct set out in April 2009 relatinmg to the calling of witnesses.

Maria has been told that the employee, who has now left the company, is making a claim for wrongful dismissal and the solicitor is wanting to move to tribunal. The CEO feels that compensation will have to be made to the employee and is placing the blame entirely at Maria’s feet for not being aware of disciplinary changes in procedure. Maria claims that the new procedure was only guidance.

As the employee was a direct report to the Sales Director it seems that she is unlikely to get any support from that direction.

Maria has announced to her team that she has finalised the restructure of the team roles and announced them to her team.

She is also bringing in a “Senior Assistant” to act as her deputy. Probably from her previous company

Two members of Maria’s team have made appointments with her to say that they feel that Maria is treating her assistant, Christine, unfairly. Maria rejected their comments and told them to mind their own business. After the meeting Maria then spoke to Christine and said that she was surprised that Christine had “to get others to fight her battles for her” and accused her of having no backbone!

Maria seems to be painting herself into a corner with her team who now view her treatment of her assistant as being unfair and bullying. Her team also suspects that Maria would like to replace Christine with the Assistant HR manager from her previous company.

The morale in the HR department has fallen and work is generally done in silence whilst Maria is present and the moment she leaves the Department discussion tales place about her poor management style. 

Maria has held a departmental staff meeting and told her team that she is conscious that Christine (her assistant) is overworked and under pressure and is therefore removing some of her responsibilities. The result is that Christine will undertake fewer new staff interviews and more research. Maria will delegate staff interviews amongst the other team members as people are available. Christine sees this as a removal of a key part of her job and the scope of her work has been reduced.

This afternoon Maria has a meeting with the Sales Director and Project Manager to look at restructuring the remaining areas of the sales force. The meeting will identify those posts and branches in the north of England that The Sales Director wants to merge and reduce the headcount by three managers and five sales administration staff. Maria is being consulted to advise on retaining the people that the Sales Manager wants to retain whilst “letting go” those he sees as being less capable.

Maria is blaming her team for her recent loss of face by advising her to cancel the free lunches for part-time staff, only to have to reverse the decision once the CEO’s wife, a part-time worker, failed to give the CEO his dinner. (See previous posts).

It seems that she has targeted her wrath onto her Assistant Manager, Christine, and reduced Christine to tears as she told her that no one liked her or respected her work! Maria has left work to go home early but Christine is receiving tea and sympathy from outraged members of Maria’s HR department.

After having to reverse her decision to cancel lunch for part time staff (see previous post) Maria is defending herself to anyone that will listen and complaining about being made to “look stupid by the CEO”.

What is interesting is that the incident is viewed as being mildly amusing by most people, who attach no blame to herself, but as Maria continues to defend herself for the error she’s seen as alienating the CEO. The consequences of this are that those people who would normally support her are gravitating towards the CEO. Perhaps others are detecting that support for Maria from the CEO is beginning to fade?

Maria called her team to a meeting and informed them that the CEO and FD have asked her to find a quick result that would provide a financial saving.

Her team went away and after some discussion between them have suggested that substantial savings could be made by withdrawing free canteen lunches from part-time staff. It was estimated that savings could amount to over £12,000 pa. This was considered an excellent idea and free meals for part time staff were withdrawn.

That night, last Thursday, the CEO returned home to find that his wife, who works part-time in the accounts department, and children were eating but that there was no meal for him. On enquiring why he was told by his wife, “you’re not feeding me at lunch so I’m not feeding you at night”.

Maria has been asked to replace the free meal allowance for all part-time staff. Naturally, she is a bit agrieved at this loss of face and is blaming her team for the suggestion.

Maria, together with the Sales Director, has visited the sales team in Exeter to close the local office. The rationale is that the office is not profitable and this is true and from a strategic point of view a good strategy for the company.

She did spend some time with each member of the team in Exeter to explain their options and to offer outsourcing advice. She also provided a list of vacant positions in the company but as these were all based in Manchester (the other side of the country) it was not viewed as being entirely helpful, which in fairness was not entirely her fault!

It has been noticed by other people within the company that she is intent on pleasing the new Sales Director at the expense of other alliances such as the CEO and COO. Indeed the Sales Director is adept at playing office politics and is understood to see himself as having far more “business ability” than his other executive Directors. He has actually been heard to say that it is only a matter of time before the CEO will “have to go!”.

I wonder if Maria is pinning her colours to the Sales Director’s mast too early?

Maria has battled into work for the first time this week as a result of the inclement weather and has immediately sent an email to all staff stating that any time taken off as a result of the snow must be made up within a four week period.

As she had a difficult journey into work Maria has just left work to return home and has pointedly stated to those in her team that all this last week she has been “working from home”.

Her team have concluded that she meant that her email will not apply to her.

I am detecting that Maria’s reputation amongst her team and some other key influence centres (people) within the company is not entirely positive. Indeed Maria is considered by some to be somewhat opportunistic and self-serving. (One person has suggested that being self-serving in most departments is acceptable it’s unfortunate for someone in HR. An interesting observation!)