HRChick
Seattle, WA
Female, 39
I'm the head of HR for a leading digital media company. I'm responsible for making my company an amazing place to work - or at least I'll go down trying! In short, I set the strategic direction for the HR function of the organization. I wear many hats: member of the executive team, confidant and advisor to my peers regarding people matters, as well as an advocate for all people that work hard to make our products great. People are what make organizations tick, and my job is to empower them all.
Totally exaggerated - no one is that smooth and good at firing people. It may not seem like the person doing the firing has any feelings, but they do. They are usually scared out of their mind, afraid to screw it up, because they don't do it all the time. Often they genuinely care about the person, as they have worked together a while, and are super bummed. And they don't want to get the stink eye when they run into them at the local coffee shop.
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It is a highly overused term. Without knowing all the details, I would guess that you are applying for roles that are not central to what an organization does. For example, as a tech company, I will always be hiring developers. But, that isn't true in other areas such as Marketing, Legal or Finance. Because these are considered 'support' functions, headcount is very closely managed in these areas. It may be possible that you are applying at organizations that are truly in a freeze - but in my experience this is quite rare. It usually happens in organizations that are super small, in severe financial distress or a business in which labor is the largest cost and managed down to the very minutes employees work (like a call center, for example.)
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I'm sorry - that sounds like a terrible experience. It's adding insult to injury. I hope they gave you a decent severance package, at least. In general, when doing layoffs, you do need to be able to legally justify who you selected for layoff as opposed to who you didn't. This decision making process defines the factors taken into account when selecting who is impacted, and usually includes one or more of: skill set, location, time in job and / or performance. While this process needs to be defined, it doesn't need to be communicated to impacted individuals during the layoff process. I don't know if your performance truly was an issue, but it sounds as if they wanted to communicate that it was and it was how they make their decision. When you say "our practice", I am assuming you worked at a law firm. Being a bunch of lawyers, my guess is that they were trying to cover their rear ends by providing you a 'defensible reason' for choosing you to lay off. That's sort of crummy, especially when you consider if they offered you severance, it came with a release from claims. If you sign that, you can't come back and sue them - so no need to worry about providing a reason at the beginning of the process.
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Ah, so many to choose from... and yet it always comes by to my dating life. It was quite embarrassing to tell my boss that the guy she needed me to fire was the same person I had broken up with two weeks before. And that was far more pleasant than the conversation with the guy. It went something along the lines of, "Remember how I told you it wasn't you, it was me? Well, I wasn't being completely honest. It really is you. And now (the company) is breaking up with you too."
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You might want to ask this of some of my ex-boyfriends. I thought it was fine, but to be honest, I think it was a little like Hot for Teacher. There certainly was an added edge of excitement, if you know what I mean. That being said, the risk likely is more to the HR person than the other employee, unless that person is the boss. Who wouldn't question what the HR person and their significant other talk about away from the workplace? It potentially ruins the credibility of the HR person, and could make the other person untrustworthy in the eyes of their peers. And, if there is favoritism involved, the HR person can be sued. You think I would have learned this lesson the first time. Happily, the third time was the charm!
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Ah, say it with me: "Nothing Is Easy". You are correct - all of us have certain skills and are capable of learning and developing in these key areas. There are some things we will never be good at, no matter how hard we try. The challenge in this situation is whether or not the employee agrees that they suck at their job, and are likely not to improve. If so, you typically can have honest conversations about how to support the employee moving to a position that is better suited for their skill set - either with the company or elsewhere. (I don't recommend using the words "you suck" in the conversation, as it generally doesn't engender goodwill.) If the employee doesn't see the light, and disagrees with your opinion on their abilities, you can simply fire them - but you probably want to do a risk assessment before taking that step as there are legal and business factors to consider. If this a small industry, and will you likely need to work with this person down the road in a different capacity, you will probably want to protect the relationship. The person will want to feel they were treated fairly and given the opportunity to address the issue. The legal risk is that the employee could claim that performance was a 'pretext' reason for the termination and that, instead, the real reason for firing them was illegal (for gender, age, race, etc.) Your best defense against this type of claim is to show the person was treated fairly, and given the opportunity to address the issue. (See a theme?)
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Lame - very lame. And, what's even worse, people typically don't act in a vacuum. If the host was awful to you, s/he likely was to other people as well.
Suing the company is where it gets a bit complicated. First, it depends on where you were that this happened. State laws tend to be a bit different when it comes to harassment law, with California being the strictest and easiest to pursue. It will also depend on the facts of the case. Was the host in a management position? How extreme was the incident? And, do you know for sure the company did nothing? Or, did they discipline the employee, but not make that known publicly - that is actually the typical response, due to privacy policies and laws.
If it were me, I'd actually look for resolution in a different manner - I would escalate the problem with the casino chain of management. I'd find the most senior executive I could, and reach out to them. Customer service organizations fear nothing more than an unhappy customer publicly denouncing services - and ruining their reputation in the process. It's like watching the news and the local customer protection reporter take on the case (in Seattle, we have "get Jesse") It's pretty amazing how quickly those situations seem to be resolved as soon as the story starts to go public. Much faster than a lawsuit, and cheaper than hiring a lawyer to be honest.
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