Stephen Harvard Davis

Maria had a meeting with the CEO this morning and has been told that due to unsatisfactory performance she is being moved from HR to leading an administration team.
 
As she is within the twelve month probationary period the decision is within this time-scale, however, the CEO is reluctant to dismiss her as she is a “senior member of staff” and he wants to be seen to be as supportive as possible to his senior team.

John will take over as head of HR and Maria will start in her new role on Monday.

Maria asked what alternatives she had and was told that either she accepted the situation or was dismissed as per her contract of engagement. Maria has left to go home early.

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.

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!)

The first day back from the festive holidays brings a staff meeting between Maria and her team. Now that she has been in her new job for a couple of months Maria intends to implement her plans for cost savings within the HR department.

She has told the team that her intention is to exceed the Managing Director’s request that all departments make a saving on budget of 6% during 2010. To do this Maria intends to restructure the team slightly and reassign workloads so that specific people handle specific departments.

Maria has also told her team that she intends to review “search company and head-hunter contracts” when sourcing new staff and that she will renegotiate fees and payment terms. This means that “some search companies might be dropped” in favour of ones that Maria has worked with in the past and whom she trusts.

Most of Maria’s team have chosen to ignore the unfortunate opening statement Maria said when she met them as a group. (See previous blog). Perhaps it was just how it was said.

Maria has been in the job a few days and starts to arrange 1:1 meetings with her team. Her objective is to forge a relationship with each individual and to discover some of their strengths and weaknesses.

She’s delighted with the way the meetings go. Lot’s of ideas come from the team but they seem short on being able to identify weaknesses in the HR system and company in general and this concerns her.

Her team, however, think her approach to their 1:1s strange. She began by saying, “I’ve looked at your file and I must say I’m most impressed at the work you have done and would value your opinion on a few things.”

Maria continued, “What improvements do you think we can make in HR and I’m interested in knowing your thoughts on the weaknesses in the rest of the HR team and management in general?”

Maria has arrived for her first morning at her new job and has spent some time with the CEO to discuss with him the CEO’s plans for the HR Department.

She now decides decides that it’s time for her to meet with her new team and calls a team meeting. She begins by introducing herself, “Hello everyone, I’m Maria and I’m a fellow of the CIPD and a professional”. After meeting with her small team she arranges some one to one meetings and returns to her office satisfied that she’s started off well.

Could she have made her first error. Some of her team have interpreted her first statement of being a “fellow of the CIPD and a professional” that she thinks perhaps her team may not be! (qualified enough or unprofessional)

Time will tell