How do I best frame this situation with my HR department?
October 24, 2019 1:16 AM Subscribe
I directly manage a female employee who is being bizarrely targeted for her communication style by male upper management. I now have a meeting with HR to discuss the situation, and I want to ensure I use the right language when I speak to them.
I work at a fortune 100 corporation as a middle manager with a staff of about 6 people, all women, including me. Me and my team are directly employed by the corporation, but work as an embedded group within a smaller company of about 400 people - let's call it the hat store - that operates somewhat independently. For the purposes of the metaphor, the smaller company sells their hats to the general public, and my team's job is to help the hat store sell their hats to other hat stores. They have separate offices and, importantly, separate HR.
My team and I have been experiencing tensions with one particular group at the hat store, the hat making team. Over the last 6 months, we have been taking these issues to their management. The issues we have been things like - what colors do you have? Sizes? What's the lead time to produce the hats? Delivery logistics? - and I receive only half the answers, or I get them late, or I am later told something has changed after I told the other hat store what they could buy, etc. The responses we have gotten to escalations are generally in the vein of we ask for too much and it's not possible to address it any time soon. I am not given any indication that efforts are happening to address it, but I still receive pressure from them to sell the hats anyway. To add another layer of crazy to this, while tiny hat maker claims this is all impossible, parent corp sells much bigger and crazier hats alllllll day! Unsurprisingly, the people under me who are trying to sell the damn hats are losing their minds.
Now to the HR issue - one of my reports, the least senior of the bunch, was anointed by my previous boss to be the main point of contact for the hat making team. This was partially because head of the hat making team liked her specifically. Despite my complete faith in my employee, I attempted to stop it because I felt she was being put in situation that needed to be addressed from the top and she would struggle to be effective. I was overruled.
Long story not short, I was right. The situation has been a complete mess, and my employee is now being labeled as a disrespectful. For her part, my employee's participation in the problem has been to occasionally send some direct, bordering on pointed emails to management about the issues she is experiencing. In response, Head of the hat making team appears to be making it his full time job to lodge a personal campaign against her while also being strangely obsessed with her. She's a thousand ranks below him and does not report to him, but he has 3 one on one meetings with her a month, more than most of his own employees. He'll have a chummy meeting with her one day, and then yell in her face and complain to any senior person in my org about her the next. His direct secondary managers have also joined him in his complaining, and they have now gone to HR.
Initially I tried to intervene, but the efforts degraded my relationship and standing with the hat making group, and they ultimately circumvented me for my boss who was recently fired for bullying behavior. This was after I had closed door meetings where, when I pointed out that I thought there were larger issues at play that were creating a powder keg, I was accused of painting the issue to be about sexism, and that as a leader at the company I needed to use my power to essentially get my employee to fall in line and show executives the respect they deserve. I was taken aback since I never once mentioned gender and focused on power differentials between leaders and subordinates.
SO, cut to today, now that my boss is gone, I have a meeting Friday with hat company's HR. This is in response to head of hat making lodging a complaint about her disrespect. I have already spoken with my report about the situation, and while she is perfectly capable of backing off, she's completely shattered to be in the middle of this and feels she has been deeply disrespected, manipulated, and ultimately silenced. I am horrified by the situation I have witnessed and my own experiences in relation to it. I'd like to deftly navigate this meeting with HR to shift the focus of the conversation from one entry level employee's curt email to the larger culture issue she is stuck in. How can I most effectively do that?
I work at a fortune 100 corporation as a middle manager with a staff of about 6 people, all women, including me. Me and my team are directly employed by the corporation, but work as an embedded group within a smaller company of about 400 people - let's call it the hat store - that operates somewhat independently. For the purposes of the metaphor, the smaller company sells their hats to the general public, and my team's job is to help the hat store sell their hats to other hat stores. They have separate offices and, importantly, separate HR.
My team and I have been experiencing tensions with one particular group at the hat store, the hat making team. Over the last 6 months, we have been taking these issues to their management. The issues we have been things like - what colors do you have? Sizes? What's the lead time to produce the hats? Delivery logistics? - and I receive only half the answers, or I get them late, or I am later told something has changed after I told the other hat store what they could buy, etc. The responses we have gotten to escalations are generally in the vein of we ask for too much and it's not possible to address it any time soon. I am not given any indication that efforts are happening to address it, but I still receive pressure from them to sell the hats anyway. To add another layer of crazy to this, while tiny hat maker claims this is all impossible, parent corp sells much bigger and crazier hats alllllll day! Unsurprisingly, the people under me who are trying to sell the damn hats are losing their minds.
Now to the HR issue - one of my reports, the least senior of the bunch, was anointed by my previous boss to be the main point of contact for the hat making team. This was partially because head of the hat making team liked her specifically. Despite my complete faith in my employee, I attempted to stop it because I felt she was being put in situation that needed to be addressed from the top and she would struggle to be effective. I was overruled.
Long story not short, I was right. The situation has been a complete mess, and my employee is now being labeled as a disrespectful. For her part, my employee's participation in the problem has been to occasionally send some direct, bordering on pointed emails to management about the issues she is experiencing. In response, Head of the hat making team appears to be making it his full time job to lodge a personal campaign against her while also being strangely obsessed with her. She's a thousand ranks below him and does not report to him, but he has 3 one on one meetings with her a month, more than most of his own employees. He'll have a chummy meeting with her one day, and then yell in her face and complain to any senior person in my org about her the next. His direct secondary managers have also joined him in his complaining, and they have now gone to HR.
Initially I tried to intervene, but the efforts degraded my relationship and standing with the hat making group, and they ultimately circumvented me for my boss who was recently fired for bullying behavior. This was after I had closed door meetings where, when I pointed out that I thought there were larger issues at play that were creating a powder keg, I was accused of painting the issue to be about sexism, and that as a leader at the company I needed to use my power to essentially get my employee to fall in line and show executives the respect they deserve. I was taken aback since I never once mentioned gender and focused on power differentials between leaders and subordinates.
SO, cut to today, now that my boss is gone, I have a meeting Friday with hat company's HR. This is in response to head of hat making lodging a complaint about her disrespect. I have already spoken with my report about the situation, and while she is perfectly capable of backing off, she's completely shattered to be in the middle of this and feels she has been deeply disrespected, manipulated, and ultimately silenced. I am horrified by the situation I have witnessed and my own experiences in relation to it. I'd like to deftly navigate this meeting with HR to shift the focus of the conversation from one entry level employee's curt email to the larger culture issue she is stuck in. How can I most effectively do that?
Seems like your direct report was set up to be single point of failure and - no surprise - eventually she (was perceived to have) failed.
None of this is about her work performance or communication skills or whatever. It's not even really about the wider corporate culture. It's about a brittle reporting structure that put way too much pressure on one fairly junior person. Your old boss screwed up by creating that structure. Luckily, they're gone now.
So - IMO you should step in here & take your direct report out of the firing line. Make the whole HR thing go away by taking away her direct relationship with the head of hat making - you should own that relationship yourself for a while. If the head hat maker wants a one-to-one every week, they can have it with you. When you have a new boss appointed, maybe they can take it off you & handle it themselves, if that would work better.
Meanwhile - of course you reassure your direct report that you have complete faith in her, and you'll stand in & take the bullshit so that she doesn't have to handle it herself.
posted by rd45 at 2:37 AM on October 24, 2019 [39 favorites]
None of this is about her work performance or communication skills or whatever. It's not even really about the wider corporate culture. It's about a brittle reporting structure that put way too much pressure on one fairly junior person. Your old boss screwed up by creating that structure. Luckily, they're gone now.
So - IMO you should step in here & take your direct report out of the firing line. Make the whole HR thing go away by taking away her direct relationship with the head of hat making - you should own that relationship yourself for a while. If the head hat maker wants a one-to-one every week, they can have it with you. When you have a new boss appointed, maybe they can take it off you & handle it themselves, if that would work better.
Meanwhile - of course you reassure your direct report that you have complete faith in her, and you'll stand in & take the bullshit so that she doesn't have to handle it herself.
posted by rd45 at 2:37 AM on October 24, 2019 [39 favorites]
Oh, about the larger culture issue... don't even go there. Way too big & complex. Focus on the immediate problem only.
posted by rd45 at 2:39 AM on October 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by rd45 at 2:39 AM on October 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
What rd45 said. And when you meet with their HR, YOU tell THEM how you want to move forward with this. Sometimes HR is viewed as upper management but it's not their job to make decisions about how managers like structure projects. HR is their to better understand and determine if employees are following policy, not make final decisions about how work gets done.
posted by waving at 4:59 AM on October 24, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by waving at 4:59 AM on October 24, 2019 [7 favorites]
I am a female middle manager who has spent her whole life working in large companies, including 20 years at a Fortune 25 company. I usually have good working relationships with my HR counterparts (I'm in engineering), but one of the things I've learned is that HR is there to keep the company out of trouble and to make problems go away. I would be extremely careful dealing with a HR person I didn't know.
I agree with rd45's advice. Take ownership for the relationship with hat making, focus on agreements and commitments, and don't talk about the culture issue. If you have your own HR and have a good relationship with them and feel like you can trust them, maybe talk about how to approach this meeting with them. In fact, if you do have such an org, I wonder why they aren't involved.
The only actual piece of advice I have to offer :), is to document everything going forward, even the results of conversations. Document agreements, commitments, actuals, etc... This will be extremely helpful if the head of hat making decides to throw you under the bus. When you get a new boss, this will also be helpful to them in terms of figuring out how to interact with hat making.
Speculation alert. My guess is that the hat making org is a complete mess and that the head of hat making is under a lot of pressure to "fix it". Having to fulfill commitments to you, as legitimate as they are, just puts their org under more scrutiny. Doesn't make their behavior right, but might help explain it.
Good luck!
posted by elmay at 6:57 AM on October 24, 2019 [6 favorites]
I agree with rd45's advice. Take ownership for the relationship with hat making, focus on agreements and commitments, and don't talk about the culture issue. If you have your own HR and have a good relationship with them and feel like you can trust them, maybe talk about how to approach this meeting with them. In fact, if you do have such an org, I wonder why they aren't involved.
The only actual piece of advice I have to offer :), is to document everything going forward, even the results of conversations. Document agreements, commitments, actuals, etc... This will be extremely helpful if the head of hat making decides to throw you under the bus. When you get a new boss, this will also be helpful to them in terms of figuring out how to interact with hat making.
Speculation alert. My guess is that the hat making org is a complete mess and that the head of hat making is under a lot of pressure to "fix it". Having to fulfill commitments to you, as legitimate as they are, just puts their org under more scrutiny. Doesn't make their behavior right, but might help explain it.
Good luck!
posted by elmay at 6:57 AM on October 24, 2019 [6 favorites]
Yeah, I think you are looking at this whole situation too broadly. The larger issues you have with the hat making team probably cannot be solved at your level (and as elmay says, are probably just a symptom of a larger issue). Meet with HR and fall on your sword. "The relationship between my employee and the head of hat making is not working out, and to address this, I have taken contact with hat making out of my employee's job description. All communication between my team and hat making will go through me, and I will ensure that it is respectful and appropriate from this point forward." Tell your employee that you are sorry for everything that has gone on, but they won't have to deal with hat making any more. If they call or email her, have her forward it to you. If they ask her for a meeting, she should tell them that you said they should meet with you instead. She can focus on selling hats.
As far as the larger issues go, document everything, and sell hats to the best of your abilities, given the circumstances. When you report on annual sales or whatever, you can throw hat making under the bus at that point: "Orders for XXX additional maroon hats were cancelled after hat making informed the team that only red hats would be available this quarter" or whatever.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:24 AM on October 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
As far as the larger issues go, document everything, and sell hats to the best of your abilities, given the circumstances. When you report on annual sales or whatever, you can throw hat making under the bus at that point: "Orders for XXX additional maroon hats were cancelled after hat making informed the team that only red hats would be available this quarter" or whatever.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:24 AM on October 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
Others have addressed the angle to take with HR, and I think you should add one more to-do here as you put yourself in the line of fire instead of your employee: this other manager is not allowed meetings alone with your reports anymore, and I think you should say so to HR with one eyebrow slightly raised.
Also, if the topic of disrespectful communication comes up in this conversation, I think you should also ask HR (which, am I understanding correctly: this is his HR not yours?) for a written definition of that term, because shouting at employees in meetings is, in fact, not great and absolutely documentable.
If you have the opportunity to throw a sliver of shade that this manager has some kind of unhealthy fixation on your employee, I think you should. You don't have to make a big show of pushing the fucker under the bus, but you can drop a banana peel near the bus stop.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:33 AM on October 24, 2019 [8 favorites]
Also, if the topic of disrespectful communication comes up in this conversation, I think you should also ask HR (which, am I understanding correctly: this is his HR not yours?) for a written definition of that term, because shouting at employees in meetings is, in fact, not great and absolutely documentable.
If you have the opportunity to throw a sliver of shade that this manager has some kind of unhealthy fixation on your employee, I think you should. You don't have to make a big show of pushing the fucker under the bus, but you can drop a banana peel near the bus stop.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:33 AM on October 24, 2019 [8 favorites]
I would want to frame this issue to HR as "I think my employee is terrific, I'm happy with her work substantively, and I've never had problems with her interpersonal skills in another context. Clearly there's some sort of personality clash with the hat guys -- I think the solution is to reassign her to [other tasks that aren't a demotion] and put someone else from my team in the hat communication role. "
posted by LizardBreath at 7:39 AM on October 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by LizardBreath at 7:39 AM on October 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
I'd like to deftly navigate this meeting with HR to shift the focus of the conversation from one entry level employee's curt email to the larger culture issue she is stuck in. How can I most effectively do that?
I strongly suggest you don’t. Once you’ve resolved the situation with this employee it can make a great example to reference, later, when you tackle the larger culture.
The reason not to use this situation as a springboard is that it has been festering for a while. There is clearly a lot of weirdness going on with the people involved and you don’t want to carry that baggage into a larger fight.
You didn’t ask, but in your shoes I would be getting the junior employee out of the line of fire. For whatever reason she’s had a target drawn on her back, so someone else should probably take over as contact.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:01 AM on October 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
I strongly suggest you don’t. Once you’ve resolved the situation with this employee it can make a great example to reference, later, when you tackle the larger culture.
The reason not to use this situation as a springboard is that it has been festering for a while. There is clearly a lot of weirdness going on with the people involved and you don’t want to carry that baggage into a larger fight.
You didn’t ask, but in your shoes I would be getting the junior employee out of the line of fire. For whatever reason she’s had a target drawn on her back, so someone else should probably take over as contact.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:01 AM on October 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
Nthing rd45's advice. Affirm your support for your employee to HR, and solve the problem for HR by taking over as point person with the (ass)hat head. Don't try to springboard this into a discussion of larger issues right now.
If HR wants to know what do about these multiple complaints from other people on asshat's team, just reiterate that it's moot because you'll be taking over effective immediately. Don't even bother getting into the weeds of disputing specific things. Neither you nor your employee report to asshat's team and you don't need to justify your decisions to them.
posted by desuetude at 12:00 PM on October 24, 2019
If HR wants to know what do about these multiple complaints from other people on asshat's team, just reiterate that it's moot because you'll be taking over effective immediately. Don't even bother getting into the weeds of disputing specific things. Neither you nor your employee report to asshat's team and you don't need to justify your decisions to them.
posted by desuetude at 12:00 PM on October 24, 2019
In your meeting I wouldn't bring up general culture. It's just about picking battles you can win. I would however back your team member to the hilt. "She's great, never had any problems, has the full trust of me, her colleagues, and my [ex-]boss." etc.
Reading into what you've written it seems like there's a weird semi- or full-on harassment thing going on against your least senior report that your ex-boss has enabled. Three 1-1's a month to someone who's not their boss or in their hierarchy is just bizarre.
So as a remedy, and something you can propose to HR as a solution, I would cut any & all formal contact between your report and the head of the hat-making team (HpHMT), & ask her to forward all emails to you, so you can remind HoHMT if necessary. It seems like he's manipulative sociopath from your description.
As unpleasant as it might be, in your place I would make myself the point of contact between your team and the hat makers and their head, and then go full defensive mode. Put everything in writing, bring along someone you trust to any scheduled meeting as an observer, limit 1-1s to none, or at the very least to a room where you have clear windows & maybe the door open, make contemporaneous notes, and keep all emails indefinitely (in a separate file/PST or something if your corporate mailbox self-cleans).
Good luck!
posted by ianso at 1:02 AM on October 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
Reading into what you've written it seems like there's a weird semi- or full-on harassment thing going on against your least senior report that your ex-boss has enabled. Three 1-1's a month to someone who's not their boss or in their hierarchy is just bizarre.
So as a remedy, and something you can propose to HR as a solution, I would cut any & all formal contact between your report and the head of the hat-making team (HpHMT), & ask her to forward all emails to you, so you can remind HoHMT if necessary. It seems like he's manipulative sociopath from your description.
As unpleasant as it might be, in your place I would make myself the point of contact between your team and the hat makers and their head, and then go full defensive mode. Put everything in writing, bring along someone you trust to any scheduled meeting as an observer, limit 1-1s to none, or at the very least to a room where you have clear windows & maybe the door open, make contemporaneous notes, and keep all emails indefinitely (in a separate file/PST or something if your corporate mailbox self-cleans).
Good luck!
posted by ianso at 1:02 AM on October 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
I'm sure someone will have more practical advice, but self-belief and confidence are important here, so that's what I offer.
posted by amtho at 1:59 AM on October 24, 2019 [8 favorites]