At my current employer we've had to involuntarily term two HR employees on different occasions but the reason was the same: they both had too many fuck ups that cost the company money.
Probably didn’t input direct deposit details in time and resulted in delays in employees pay which eventually resulted in one employee filing a complaint with their states labour department and thus the company was fined.
This is an oddly specific guess. There are many fuck ups when it comes to HR that could cost a company money.
The first things that came to my mind were: Issuing payments to terminated employees, ESRP fines from not offering affordable healthcare, i9 penalties, etc.
The possibilities are endless!
I replaced an HR manager who just got fired. She was beyond useless. One of the employees was super happy with me because I was able to sign her up for the 401k. The last person had lost the paperwork twice. The bar was pretty low...
She recorded the list C document in the list B section and vice versa on EVERY SINGLE form she did. A good third of them weren’t signed, she kept copies of the I-9 documentation for a handful but not all of the employees (and that has to be an all or none thing).
It’s such a hit to credibility when you have to go back to employees and ask them to sign a document that is three years old because the old HR manager missed having them sign it. Or worse tons of I-9s with no signature on terminated employees.
I learned a lot about the rules for fixing I-9s. Like any changes have to be made in a certain ink color, you cannot cross off any old information to the point where it is no longer able to read. It has to be one single strike through, and you also have to type up a small document about why you made the changes and attach it to the I-9, and I believe you had to initial and date all the changes as well
I have no clue 😂 and now I feel like all of this useless “how to a correct an I-9” expertise is floating uselessly around my head like I will never need this again…
I have the same problem at my current company. Completing an I-9 Audit and almost everything is wrong/not complete/missing 😭🥴 Most employees have been super nice but a few have been pissed that they need to do it over
Lol I have the same experience here. My predecessor was fired and feel I can do no wrong. I make silly mistakes all the time, but at least I'm not sexually harassing the staff!
Stuff like that makes it no surprise employees hate HR. If that’s been their experience? I mean come on. Take paperwork. Enter paperwork. File paperwork. How hard is it??
I know, right? I was like "... THAT'S your biggest gripe? Ok, fixed"
All the onboarding was done on paper. Literally 30 forms to complete that turn each had to manually be scanned and sent somewhere. I threw most into a phone friendly esign. Took me about 2 hours, saved about 10 hours of employee work a week.
It's such a shame the industry is dogged with incompetence. It does make the car pretty low for us average performers 😂
I've been with my current employer (public sector) for 16 years and when I first started Internet usage on county computers was verboten. You would get in serious trouble. Now they don't really care. We have a social media policy, and basically it's "Try to limit the use of the Internet during work hours."
Funny thing is I worked for a government contractor in a secured facility in the early-mid-90s and we could peruse pretty much anything. In fact, one of my co-workers used to watch some woman named Jen who had a webcam as she did whatever during the day, lol.
Sounds like Jennicam. She was probably one of the first if not the first on the internet to live stream continuously from her apt no matter what she was doing. She gained a-lot of notoriety during that time period.
Yes! That was her! I worked in a mission control space, so we had giant screens up and he would sometimes have her up on the screen so we got to see her up close and personal sometimes.
IIRC, she lived in the DC area and we were very near to where she was. I thought my coworker was kinda weird and creepy because he talked about her all the time. I guess his fiancee didn't mind.
I'm currently an Employee Relations Director, but I was fired from jobs as an attorney (twice), my job in customer service for a catalog, and as a forklift operator all due to my alcoholism.
Now 15 years into sobriety, I use my experience to be empathetic to my workforce, with a goal to not fire any one if possible.
Had to fire a guy that was so drunk at a client site the client emailed us and wanted him never in their facility again. We sent him to the EAP and he ended up getting drunk after being sent to the EAP went to the client site and took a dump on the sidewalk. Never a dull moment in HR.
I've seen HR professionals essentially be terminated or "asked" to leave or they would move to termination because they were just poor performers or made too many mistakes that they did not learn from, over and over.
Aware HR professionals hopefully would recognize the situation and look before it gets to that point. But the poor performers never think it's "that bad" or "but they can't function without me."
At my first job, 3 HR people got fired:
1. Recruiter- he filled a TON of roles, which was weird because he slept at his desk for at least an hour a day. We later discovered he was solely relying on 3rd-party recruiters to fill his jobs for him. We had a policy at that company that we could get a 3rd-party to help after 2 weeks of low/no applicants... so after 2 weeks he would literally delete all the resumes, contact his buddy at the agency, and go to a lunch meeting to discuss the role. It was a very easy decision.
2. A benefits manager- her area was literally hemorrhaging money. She also failed to enroll people before certain deadlines, and would spend HOURS on the phone either flirting with a guy in IT (or plan where/when to meet up for some fun times), or bickering nonstop with our broker rep. Once a week, she would tell me that I wasn't "giving her information quickly enough" (I was in onboarding), even though she had a list of upcoming names and hire dates sent to her weekly, and I gave her any/all relevant files within a week of their start date. When she was fired, I was asked to clean out her desk and I found >$1m in checks hidden away in her desk. I am not joking. She would get refund checks from the insurance company and put them in her drawer without doing anything with them. I have no idea the # of system failures that needed to happen for that. I think there were about 500 checks for various amounts stashed in every possible crevice. I have no idea the actual reason she was fired because when I showed the VP, they were floored.
3. Employee relations manager- fired for a number of reasons, but the straw that broke the camel's back was putting passive-aggressive articles on the CEO's desk about why dogs in the office are the greatest thing ever, and then sneaking her own 8-week old puppy and hiding it in various manager's offices for weeks. (I have a recent comment with this story in case anyone is interested, lol)
That company sincerely was one of the craziest places I have ever heard of. The HR department alone could be a viral Netflix documentary series. I am very grateful to have gotten out when I did with "only" stories.
This reminds me of a story. The employee wasn't in HR, but in my former I reviewed all employee evaluations before the manager reviewed them with the employee. One of the competencies is Workplace Safety. Our rating scale is 1-5, and a 3 is Meets Standard. The manager rated the employee 3 for Safety, but noted that earlier that year the employee had 1) totaled an agency vehicle by backing into the fence at the work location--totally destroying the fence, and 2) brought in unopened alcohol and stored it in the fridge at work (we have a no alcohol on the premises policy.) My gasted was so flabbered by this manager. But it is still one of the funnier evaluation moments. And yes, that employee eventually left us and so did the manager.
Why did this create a visual for me of some guy holding a clipboard watching as a truck plows into a fence.
*Squints down at clipboard. Squints up at completely destroyed fence.*
“Okay, yeah meets standards. That’ll be a 3.”
I've worked at places that do that as well, however this employer has a strict policy regarding drugs, weapons, and alcohol on-site.
They also weren't only storing it either....
Our HR director "resigned". He was an ass. It's pretty sad when **no one** in the entire organization likes the Director of HR. We were sooo happy when he left. We've had issues with a couple of recruiters where they ended up *leaving*. We have had to terminate a couple of part-time staff. I think it hits hard when HR staff members have performance issues.
I’ve seen HR people terminated for performance (many), for falsifying time, for falling for a massive phishing scam, for helping a job candidate cheat, and for flipping the fuck out. I don’t hold myself to any “special” standards but I do try to be reliable, steady and calm in time of chaos.
There was an HR director in my area that worked for a local municipality and she got fired because she pushed someone of their rolling chair and that person broke their tailbone. Soooo yeah it happens
Exactly! And it was on the local news so she's screwed. She's not gonna be in this field anymore. I know the woman she pushed, and she is a big jerk, but that's doesn't make it right. Also, you're the HR director of the city. wtf!? Lol
My HR manager was fired when I was a generalist because she couldn’t stop arguing with the president and talking shit about the company to anyone who came in her office
I’ve seen HR professionals get fired (and be the one firing) for multiple reasons. Most have tended to be breaching confidentiality (Sharing specific employee relations matters to people they shouldn’t, falsifying paperwork, knowingly violating a type of employment law) but I’ve also seen others get fired for performance and simple laziness. We are held to a higher standard and it’s more common than you would think for HR to be in the same situations we are the ones handling.
What’s the saying do as I say not as I do?
I was termed from an HR Manager job after about 3 months. It was pretty evident that it was not a very good cultural fit pretty quickly. Admittedly, I wasn’t picking up what they wanted me to do and I always found myself on the other side of many decisions being made at the top. I was given a horrific evaluation by the senior hr manager and I was asked to leave early, take the weekend and think about whether I wanted the job or not. I decided to come back and really dedicate myself to the role and did make some improvements but their minds were already made up at that point, I think. I was treated very coldly and termed right after annual enrollment. Fortunately I landed on my feet and went back to my previous employer as an hr manager. I was not perfect and certainly deserved it but the way I was treated and the names I was called during that evaluation sent me to therapy up to two years after. The real kicker is that the plant called me about 1.5 years after to let me know that the hr manager who termed me had left the position and if I would be interested in coming back. I firmly turned it down.
I write this lengthy story because it’s a little therapeutic, but I use my experience there as a lesson, not only for me in my own career, but how I treat others who may find themselves in a similar position. It stinks having to fire somebody, but it can still be done with dignity. I made a promise to myself in my own career to never treat my employees or others that I find myself needing to terminate the way I was treated there.
So yes, I’m jn HR, I’ve been terminated and it was due to my own actions but I count it as a lesson learned.
I guess it depends on the company. My current company will rehire you even if you’ve been terminated for attendance. Once it gets into gross negligence, major policy violations, etc, then you cross into the not rehireable category.
For my instance my wishful thinking is that maybe they didn’t think I was so bad after all but the reality is that I think that they wanted somebody who was familiar with their niche industry and were getting desperate lol. Not going to lie though, it felt good to get that call because I felt worthless for a while after getting termed.
Not me but the woman whose job I took was fired. Consistently late with all deadlines and difficult to work with. She was not liked by the vast majority.
Yes, a few. My current position, major Payroll f\*ck up that affected the VP of HR. My last position, one person got termed for lying in an email, and the other for asking for someone's age and then telling them, "Nevermind, I can look it up anyway!"
Wow on that last part! A recruiter doofus at an old job used to ask my age all the time. I don't discuss or ask personal details so I refused to tell her. She said she could look it up anyway and got really riled when I warned her not to. She wouldn't have gotten fired anyhow. She was the manager's pet and sat around on her arse most of the day anyway. Pathetic.
Yeah, it was bold as hell. The one thing I remember about her is that she had SO MUCH SHIT at work she basically needed to back up a uhaul while we were waiting for her to leave.
Can you elaborate on the payroll fuckup? I’ve fucked that up quite a few times and found that it’s more manageable to fix than other things (like ER or confidential data leak).
Not me but the HR Manager that hired me was walked out 2 weeks after I started. They found out she'd been using the company card for personal purchases and had signed her family up for health insurance outside of her eligibility period. I didn't know any of what was going on until it was all over. It was real awkward because they made me pack up her office and drive the box to her house.
She recovered, though. A few years later when I was looking for a new job, I made it to the final round of interviews and saw her name included in the meeting invite. I mentioned to the recruiter that I knew her and a few hours later I was told that I was no longer being considered for the position. Apparently she held a grudge.
lmaoo HR folks are so petty. she screwed up and then caused you to lose a job that you qualified for lol. it’s a who you know environment for sure. she learned her lesson and probably did better.
Not me, but I had to aid in terminating my HR director at my first job because she never came to work and/or turned in things on time. It was mind blowing
I had a new job that I ended up getting fired from after a couple months for missing too much work. I was dealing with multiple surgeries and health diagnoses, and didn't really care for the work I was doing, and called out one too many times I guess. I probably could have tried to get some kind of ADA accommodation but I was in a bad state mentally and physically and hated the job, so I just kinda let it happen.
I got placed on a PIP for being stretched too thin (covering multiple roles, so I started missing things). Walked before they had the chance to term. But I have seen multiple coworkers terminated. Deduction fuck ups, general incompetence, and laziness were the usual causes, and all were self inflicted terminations.
Ugh this is happening to me right now. I work at a startup of 150 employees & the hr dept is just me & my manager. They have me doing at least 2 other full time jobs without compensating me. I recently had an employee tell me I never respond to them on time bc I’m being stretched out way too thin.
I’m so sorry to hear that. If it helps, I just made post it’s of all my reach outs, and would bang em out at the end of the day. Even if it’s a “hey, I’m working on this”, and you follow up more in depth later, it usually helps when you’re out of pocket for prolonged periods.
I appreciate the advice.
I also feel a lot of my coworkers see me as a maid just bc I’m in HR - they expect me to do the smallest stuff for them. Also doesn’t help that I’m the only person of color in the office 🙃
I've seen many HR professionals get fired over the years. Everything from personality/cultural fit issues to general incompetence.
I was terminated from my first job as a business partner early in my career after about a year. They didn't give me a reason (was paid a substantial amount of severance) and I was never put through any progressive discipline but I have my suspicions why. Basically, they posted for an HR Business Partner opening but only wanted someone with 2 years as an HR Coordinator (which is all I had). I assumed they were planning on really training the incumbent and help them become a business partner, but I received very little coaching. As a result, I made a few minor mistakes and my confidence in my decisions fell. By the time I was fired, I was walking on eggshells with everything I did and said, and felt like I had to run everything by my boss. She cried during the termination meeting and I'm still not 100% sure what ultimately led to the decision.
Thankfully I got a new job at a similar level (where they were willing to coach me) within a month and after a few years, I was able to (mostly) get over the damage that experience did to my confidence in my abilities. Now I'm really valued as a business partner at my company.
They reposted for a different role so thankfully I was able to say my role was eliminated, which was technically true. I also had a director from the company willing to give me a positive reference, which was helpful.
Not me, but my predecessor at a previous job was let go for messing up medical withholding for someone so badly that we gave them thousands of dollars in free healthcare.
Was the person enrolled wrong? Our insurers always honor fixing data feeds or things like that. Adjust the invoice and back date coverage. Was this something different?
They were enrolled correctly, but the withholding on their paycheck was wrong. And it was someone who elected very expensive benefits. Over the course of many months it added up to thousands the company should have withheld from the person's paycheck but didn't, so the options were to either eat that money or ask the employee if we can 2x or 3x withholding for a while.
Seems harsh to me to terminate for something like this. It’s a run of the mill mistake and while I agree payroll should be triple checked every time, we are all human.
It was a staffing company and the employee was a contractor, so it literally negated the company's profits. Also it was a final straw sort of situation.
Not me but we had a coordinator who got fired for making up holidays to take time off and consistent mess ups, not being present when his superiors were calling him.
Ok so not me, but I was an HR manager for a small manufacturing plant. The Director got fired for groping a customer at a networking event. She was insanely drunk and there were multiple witnesses. This was her first time at this particular networking group.
There were tons is other issues obviously but I can’t even imagine what went through her head….
I have gotten candid feedback from folks I support saying they had assumed some things like disciplinary action and performance mgmt etc don’t apply to HR. So I think it’s great for anyone stopping by this page to read these stories. Anyone can be susceptible to factors that impact us at work (our own doing or things happening to us) and can lead to getting fired. HR absolutely should be held to the same high standards as anyone else who handles confidential / time sensitive / life impacting important info all day everyday.
Totally agree. I’m fairly new to HR (4 years in after 10 years in other fields but I have pretty transferable skills and my boss took a chance on me) and I find this whole thread fascinating. One of the many reasons I love HR is because of the standard we set for the whole workforce community. My HR colleagues are stellar professionals and good hearted people that understand what is at stake. They have taught me everything I know about HR. It definitely motivates me to try my best and do my job well to stay in this role as long as I can!
but they don’t. a lot of them are allowed to resign and start over. while a regular employee has to tell the same hr folks why they were fired which 9/10 will
end with them not getting the job lol. Never met anybody that was hired after admitting they were fired….unless they knew someone.
Not me but my hr manager. Would come into the office late most mornings, sip her sbucks at her desk for a while and then wander off for hours. Could never quite figure out exactly what she did all day.
She was actually on a pip due to her performance but finally resigned one day without notice. Just emailed our director, left her badge behind, and walked out. I ran into her years later and she pretended not to know me. Lol!
I haven't, but I have been involved in two HR terminations. One was a corporate HR manager who oversaw one of our manufacturing facilities. We had multiple complaints come from that facility of favoritism and the leadership over there turning a blind eye to unethical or even dangerous behaviors occurring from some of the entry-level manufacturing ees. We investigated and multiple times it came down to this one plant manager, who there was not quite enough evidence to point to him doing anything wrong but his name came up in so many complaints. Turns out he was super close with the HR manager and on our final investigation found out that she had been covering for him covering for his favorites. She was let go.
The other one was a woman in the operations area (working with our HRIS) who just wasn't good at her job. To be fair, she came from TA and her role was eliminated and she was offered this entry-level role on the HRIS team and she just couldn't grasp it.
Yes, I was let go from a previous employer in my first job. My role required that I enter all new hire information and I got behind on submitting I-9s.
I’ve had to term two HR reps in my career. One for my performance, and one for inappropriate conduct. But at my old company HR turnaround wasn’t common but it did happen and for a variety of reasons just like any other position.
No for me personally, but I’ll tell you some stories over my career.
A specialist I hired wouldn’t do one category of the work assigned, messed up auditing for benefits deductions from OE, and tried to change my boss’s policy without asking on a program that also affected another department. Had to term as when corrected, she was defensive and didn’t understand the impact.
A coordinator I inherited shared comp data with a supervisor level employee without clearing it when we only shared at the manager level and above at the time. I had to term for that, but she was already on thin ice. There were other mistakes I was later informed about that were unacceptable and she didn’t know how to use excel when she had told the team in her interview she did (I didn’t hire her and wouldn’t have).
A friend worked at a place where the CHRO was fired for denying reasonable accommodations after a lawsuit.
A boss of mine fired a contractor because she was driving all of her stakeholders crazy while trying to go above and beyond on her goals. I was consulted by my boss before the decision was made. Brilliant jerk problem.
An exec boss of mine was fired after a lot of bad behavior- making female employees cry in convos, laying me off in retaliation post a short medical leave caused by work & reporting the next item, going into the office when it was illegal during the start of COVID, not delivering on goals, not really working.
I was involuntarily termed after 3 months due to “the role being too senior” and various other reasons including performance. Which was mind boggling as all feedback I got prior was that I was a good hire, was doing well etc. it shattered me. That was 2 years ago. I set out after that to prove them wrong and come back.
Well guess what? They posted the position again 12 hours ago. I emailed my previous manager and c suite of what challenges I took on and the passion I still had for the company cause I do. Literally asked if I’m barred from life from working there. Not even sure if they will hire me again. They might. If so, I’m 10x more experienced and 4x certified with a masters than when they hired me 2 years prior.
Of course! It was a hard hill to climb, and I’m hoping they give me a shot. If so, I’ll come full circle and maybe finally be at peace with an event that literally shattered my professional life. It’s so odd to say a company has such a pull over me but it does.
Why would you want to go back somewhere that either
1. they would rather fire you than give you honest feedback and training to address subpar performance
OR
2. Blame your performance for your firing if it was for an unrelated reason, resulting in 2 years of self doubt
?
Good question! When I was hired there 2 years prior they never had an HR Manager and was in the process of building up the department. There was a generalist there who split the time between HR and being an EA for a C suite. Upon arrival I had the generalist and the front desk person under me. Both already had beef with each other on a high school level that I was unable to resolve as my generalist was talking crap after work with coworkers about the other. When they hired the HR above me (2 months in) I notified them of the situation, asked for assistance since I couldn't get through to them and noted several confidentiality issues with the generalist that essentially leads to a term.
Well, they didn't term instead "set expectations" with the generalist; I'm still getting good feedback that I did the right thing, it was a sticky situation (I was about to fire them both cause they couldn't work things out in the same room with a neutral party involved). Then one random afternoon I was let go despite my pile list of things I was working on as my generalist was on vacation and I had done more than what was asked of me. I was never given a clear answer as to WHY I was let go just "Some concerning things came about, you don't fit the culture, poor performance, you are not advanced enough for this role", along with several other reasons. When I filed for unemployment, I couldn't put one single reason why it happened. It was like someone trying not to blame me for breaking up with me.
Fast forward a month, the front desk person is fired and fast forward a few more months, the generalist is fired as well. It's been over a year now since they are both gone, so I figure if that is what caused my separation, that roadblock is no longer there. Not advanced? I've been through the fire 4 times now and handled things on my own. I've proven myself far more worthy than I did 2 years ago.
Sure it caused self doubt (still does) but it weirdly pushes me to prove to them I was the right choice all along. I have been writing papers for my grad degree on their company, their international reach as cannabis becomes legalized and more. I can guarantee no one in that candidate pool will be able to recite 10 years of history and the evolution thereafter for that company quite like I can. I attended every event despite the sorrow I felt deep down that I wasn't part of the team who created it. It's a passion I found that I never had with a company before this one and I will shoot my shot to get back in instead of being bitter and resentful. Even if it takes me to being the top HR person and replacing the person who fired me in 2022 to do it.
I don't expect anyone to understand this. But when we have to go to work and pay bills, when you find somewhere you vibe with and are happy (all my photos from that time are genuine happiness for the first time since working at 15) you will do anything to get that back especially in HR. If that means I'm on contract for 6 months to prove myself, so be it. If it means a salary cut, so be it. If it means traveling 75% of the time, so be it.
No, but a CHRO was let go for super sketchy hiring practices, along with every single one of the super sketchy senior leaders he hired.
That was a fun day.
Ah lest I forget, she also wired two off cycle payments to her account in the amount of 10k when she was under investigation. Literally through the HRIS system lol. I couldn’t believe the audacity.
I think HR are encouraged to resign before any formal action is taken.
We might even be offered a settlement/severance because we know where the skeletons are!
I worked at a place that launched an investigation (I was interviewed) because the HRD went on vacation and the Assistant Director thought that was the perfect time to smack talk and try and get him fired. Assistant Director is the one who ended up fired (totally deserved, the HRD was much loved).
Ummm well not me because I really try to walk the line with all of this but an hr manager was mysteriously fired or quit one day (rumor was embezzlement but why knows?), then a specialist for basically doing nothing and stealing time for another person, one for hacking someone else's account on our work social network and sent threatening messages to certain employees (she signed her name), and another for helping another employee steal time
Woah.. sent threatening messages with her name on it? And hacking someone else’s account? That’s absurd.
What was the final straw that took her to get fired?
I got fired once for "making too many mistakes". They quoted one payroll mistake I made 4 months prior, which I admitted and fixed it immediately. The employee didn't even notice and had no problem. Then they quoted other people's mistakes that they expected me to catch. That includes several of my bosses own mistakes and apparently I didn't catch them for her.....
It was BS and they knew it. They told me they won't fight unemployment. They did it the day I came back from my honeymoon. The boss hired her friends son to replace me, who started a few days later....
Companies like this really need to hope and pray they’re never the ones who end up without a job, because the karma that would be coming their way would be brutal.
I had to term 2 people on my team over 6 years in my last job.
1 was recruiter for poor performance. She basically ignored any instructions given to her and did whatever she felt like.
2nd was an hr gen for stealing time. She would leave early or come in late everyday and would change her time card to read full 8 hours (hourly employee). Not sure why she thought she could get away w it but insta termed.
All the things I should’ve been fired for as an HRC were due to shit or lack of training by my generalist. They were promoted to HRBP through nepotism of best friend IRL making the position for them. They’ve cost the company over 500k by hiring clear workers comp scam people who she believed every word of and painted picture that it was companies fault when. It wasn’t.
We’ve been trying to get her fired because she’s so bad that her employees come 1 mile down the road to a DIFFERENT COMPANY BUILSING. To ask for HR support from a different team from a. Different branch of the company
Replaced an HR Manager that had been in place for 8 months. During that time 30% of new hires didn't have e-verify run. Another 30% (not always the same ee's) were not offered benefits on time. EE docs were just stacked in a drawer. Site leadership and employees unaware of policies and standards. State required sick leave policy not established.
Just started as a replacement to an HR Director. unable to verify that e-verify was run on any EE's in last 6 months, COBRA not sent for last 6 months. Benefit enrollment spotty in same period. Predecessor decided to dump payroll/HRIS system the company had been using for 12 years because they didn't want to learn that system. Appears they didn't know anything about how to implement/transition properly. Went to ADP WFN. Benefit enrollment flows, carrier connections not setup, most employee category info not setup, WC codes put in NAICS field, onboarding not setup.
Many years ago promoted into a benefits role because the incumbent didn't bother to term employees from the carriers, for over a year. That one also resulted in the exiting of the B&C Director and the Sr Director of HR/Payroll.
Had to let a recruiter go one time because they didn't quite get that the company hired the recruiter to not be using temp agencies.
Recently was going to place a Generalist on a PIP for poor performance, they NCNS instead.
Generally, HR doesn't get canned because we know how to exit gracefully, and in full compliance with all exit requirements to maximize the separation.
Terminate for attendance. I was always habitually a late person to work. But I was always tired and sleepy. Little did I know I had severe obstructive sleep apnea. One CPAP later I’m a morning person and one of the first in the office haha
I was not working in an HR role, but having been in HR for 15 years, I brought up some….issues with departmental function/leadership that would be easy to fix and have a great payoff in employee satisfaction (which was, and remains a huge problem). I was fired for insubordination because I was “being negative” for voicing known problems and potential solutions. Where am I now? Director of Operations somewhere else. Much happier. And delighted that when I bring up an issue and potential solutions I am heard, respected, and given healthy feedback on proceeding with making changes.
I was terminated from a previous company where I worked as an HR Generalist. The HR Director that hired me was terminated for trying to enforce covid policies (company was privately owned and much of the executive team thought it was a joke). Not long after that they brought in a new manager who terminated me because she didn’t like me. Only reason she could give for my termination was I didn’t “fit” with her direction for the company. She terminated me over the phone at lunchtime on a Friday 🙄
Now years later I’m with a new organization and couldn’t be happier. That company and their leadership was absolutely toxic and they have lost almost all of their best employees since.
Actually my first big boy full time time was in HR for a gym chain. I was the techie of the team so I made that my lane and eventually got some bs Project Coordinator position that was eventually “redundant”
I was young and very vocal about issues in the office. One day I might’ve gotten too comfortable with my manager (which had never happened before) bad mouthing the director and soon after I sent an email to the company COO (who was over HR) about the issues I felt were creating a negative experience and I think the following Monday they fired me.
Hella nepotism; my manager was really just my manager because her dad was a regional chain manager. Otherwise, she didn’t gaf about our work and was really not present except when her direct reports (who were all women and mostly data entry people) messed up or something unintentional. Directors husband was this older dude that didn’t understand hr tech but would love to question me (he was nice. I just hated the imposed authority because his husband was the director)
I was on track to automate most of the roles tbh. But looking back, it’s def my fault for getting a bit too comfortable and contrarian. But I was young and didn’t know how to play the game lol
But in hindsight one of the best things to happen - 2 jobs later and I make way more than the director himself who fired me and the manager who didn’t give a fuck about our careers or wellbeing.
Since then “family owned” in job descriptions has scared me away lol it’s hard to be your own person and navigate working for people who all know/are related to each other somehow
maybe...not those examples, but made an (innocent) mistake that was caught many years into my service that would have had another correct way to accomplish the same thing..... they claimed misconduct (that they viewed it somehow as stealing from them) and terminated me. What's odd is at the time the mistake was made I cleared it with the CEO who was also an attorney and we both read the "rules" the same way. Later he left, i was terminated and I talked to him about it and he stated "if we had known that, we would have just done it a different (legal) way". But they also were trying to get to him through me.....
In the end I fixed it personally on my side so the company felt NO cost or liability to the tune of a 5 digit personal check within 7 days of finding the problem. I took the higher ground.
It sucked, but I can sleep at night....what's so odd is this same employer KNEW me and my ethics and instead of working with me, threatened me and terminated without ever getting my side of the story.
Again it sucked...but I learned a lot and know that i personally am in a much better place now.
Walked into a place that had 150 out of 220 I-9s incorrect. Most staff have terminated from that time period and the forms past the 3 years retention period now. Shred fest for me. We had a HR / Payroll Manager that was never in the office for three years. I’m still filing 2019 items to this day.
Yeah. I used to work in a produce section. A lot of the vegetables that come in have dry ice on them to keep them cold during long distance trips. When I was 19 years old, I took all of the dry ice off the boxes that contain the vegetables and put them in the giant produce sink, then turned the hot water on the whole stack. This made an enormous cloud of dry ice smoke and, fun fact, you can’t breathe that stuff. The sink was completely obscured by the smoke, so I couldn’t get close enough to the sink to shut the water off. The eventual result was that the entire produce section had tule fog like it was Halloween. Apparently the store manager wasn’t amused and I got let go.
We fired an HR lady because she had a nasty attitude and everyone was afraid of her. She didn't want to deal with people so she wouldn't answer her phone when people called her. She actually told me about it and was laughing about it.
At my current employer we've had to involuntarily term two HR employees on different occasions but the reason was the same: they both had too many fuck ups that cost the company money.
Like what type ? Wrong payments, hires?
Missed deadlines for state filings, miscalculating payroll, benefits inaccuracies, etc. We have gotten a lot better since they got termed.
Probably didn’t input direct deposit details in time and resulted in delays in employees pay which eventually resulted in one employee filing a complaint with their states labour department and thus the company was fined.
This is an oddly specific guess. There are many fuck ups when it comes to HR that could cost a company money. The first things that came to my mind were: Issuing payments to terminated employees, ESRP fines from not offering affordable healthcare, i9 penalties, etc. The possibilities are endless!
Who got the money?
I replaced an HR manager who just got fired. She was beyond useless. One of the employees was super happy with me because I was able to sign her up for the 401k. The last person had lost the paperwork twice. The bar was pretty low...
When I took my HR managers job when she was fired, I found that she had done all of the I-9s wrong 😭
Lol how did they mess them up
She recorded the list C document in the list B section and vice versa on EVERY SINGLE form she did. A good third of them weren’t signed, she kept copies of the I-9 documentation for a handful but not all of the employees (and that has to be an all or none thing). It’s such a hit to credibility when you have to go back to employees and ask them to sign a document that is three years old because the old HR manager missed having them sign it. Or worse tons of I-9s with no signature on terminated employees. I learned a lot about the rules for fixing I-9s. Like any changes have to be made in a certain ink color, you cannot cross off any old information to the point where it is no longer able to read. It has to be one single strike through, and you also have to type up a small document about why you made the changes and attach it to the I-9, and I believe you had to initial and date all the changes as well
How do you fuck up an I-9 that bad 💀
I have no clue 😂 and now I feel like all of this useless “how to a correct an I-9” expertise is floating uselessly around my head like I will never need this again…
I've only had to cross out a SSN I put in wrong and put the correction and initial and date it.
Are you still using paper I-9s?
This was in 2016
I have the same problem at my current company. Completing an I-9 Audit and almost everything is wrong/not complete/missing 😭🥴 Most employees have been super nice but a few have been pissed that they need to do it over
Lol I have the same experience here. My predecessor was fired and feel I can do no wrong. I make silly mistakes all the time, but at least I'm not sexually harassing the staff!
was it a dude lol??
Yep! It was a start-up that expanded quickly so he went from being one of the lads, to a dirty perv.
Stuff like that makes it no surprise employees hate HR. If that’s been their experience? I mean come on. Take paperwork. Enter paperwork. File paperwork. How hard is it??
I know, right? I was like "... THAT'S your biggest gripe? Ok, fixed" All the onboarding was done on paper. Literally 30 forms to complete that turn each had to manually be scanned and sent somewhere. I threw most into a phone friendly esign. Took me about 2 hours, saved about 10 hours of employee work a week. It's such a shame the industry is dogged with incompetence. It does make the car pretty low for us average performers 😂
That’s REALLY challenging for one of my coworkers.
Christ lol.
[удалено]
I've been with my current employer (public sector) for 16 years and when I first started Internet usage on county computers was verboten. You would get in serious trouble. Now they don't really care. We have a social media policy, and basically it's "Try to limit the use of the Internet during work hours." Funny thing is I worked for a government contractor in a secured facility in the early-mid-90s and we could peruse pretty much anything. In fact, one of my co-workers used to watch some woman named Jen who had a webcam as she did whatever during the day, lol.
Sounds like Jennicam. She was probably one of the first if not the first on the internet to live stream continuously from her apt no matter what she was doing. She gained a-lot of notoriety during that time period.
Yes! That was her! I worked in a mission control space, so we had giant screens up and he would sometimes have her up on the screen so we got to see her up close and personal sometimes. IIRC, she lived in the DC area and we were very near to where she was. I thought my coworker was kinda weird and creepy because he talked about her all the time. I guess his fiancee didn't mind.
This is wild 😂
What did you ask jeeves???
I'm currently an Employee Relations Director, but I was fired from jobs as an attorney (twice), my job in customer service for a catalog, and as a forklift operator all due to my alcoholism. Now 15 years into sobriety, I use my experience to be empathetic to my workforce, with a goal to not fire any one if possible.
Had to fire a guy that was so drunk at a client site the client emailed us and wanted him never in their facility again. We sent him to the EAP and he ended up getting drunk after being sent to the EAP went to the client site and took a dump on the sidewalk. Never a dull moment in HR.
Some people refuse to be helped succeed.
I've seen HR professionals essentially be terminated or "asked" to leave or they would move to termination because they were just poor performers or made too many mistakes that they did not learn from, over and over. Aware HR professionals hopefully would recognize the situation and look before it gets to that point. But the poor performers never think it's "that bad" or "but they can't function without me."
At my first job, 3 HR people got fired: 1. Recruiter- he filled a TON of roles, which was weird because he slept at his desk for at least an hour a day. We later discovered he was solely relying on 3rd-party recruiters to fill his jobs for him. We had a policy at that company that we could get a 3rd-party to help after 2 weeks of low/no applicants... so after 2 weeks he would literally delete all the resumes, contact his buddy at the agency, and go to a lunch meeting to discuss the role. It was a very easy decision. 2. A benefits manager- her area was literally hemorrhaging money. She also failed to enroll people before certain deadlines, and would spend HOURS on the phone either flirting with a guy in IT (or plan where/when to meet up for some fun times), or bickering nonstop with our broker rep. Once a week, she would tell me that I wasn't "giving her information quickly enough" (I was in onboarding), even though she had a list of upcoming names and hire dates sent to her weekly, and I gave her any/all relevant files within a week of their start date. When she was fired, I was asked to clean out her desk and I found >$1m in checks hidden away in her desk. I am not joking. She would get refund checks from the insurance company and put them in her drawer without doing anything with them. I have no idea the # of system failures that needed to happen for that. I think there were about 500 checks for various amounts stashed in every possible crevice. I have no idea the actual reason she was fired because when I showed the VP, they were floored. 3. Employee relations manager- fired for a number of reasons, but the straw that broke the camel's back was putting passive-aggressive articles on the CEO's desk about why dogs in the office are the greatest thing ever, and then sneaking her own 8-week old puppy and hiding it in various manager's offices for weeks. (I have a recent comment with this story in case anyone is interested, lol)
I don’t even know which of these stories is the wildest
That company sincerely was one of the craziest places I have ever heard of. The HR department alone could be a viral Netflix documentary series. I am very grateful to have gotten out when I did with "only" stories.
I would tune into that show.
There’s a podcast for that. Hostile Work Environment podcast
Going to check it out.
how did they hire these ppl? word of mouth from friends.
Damn. Throw the whole company away at that point 😂 if this much was going on in HR, I shudder to think of what the other departments look like.
I had to involuntarily term an HR Professional for bringing alcohol in the workplace...that was surreal
Oof. When intrusive thoughts win
This reminds me of a story. The employee wasn't in HR, but in my former I reviewed all employee evaluations before the manager reviewed them with the employee. One of the competencies is Workplace Safety. Our rating scale is 1-5, and a 3 is Meets Standard. The manager rated the employee 3 for Safety, but noted that earlier that year the employee had 1) totaled an agency vehicle by backing into the fence at the work location--totally destroying the fence, and 2) brought in unopened alcohol and stored it in the fridge at work (we have a no alcohol on the premises policy.) My gasted was so flabbered by this manager. But it is still one of the funnier evaluation moments. And yes, that employee eventually left us and so did the manager.
Why did this create a visual for me of some guy holding a clipboard watching as a truck plows into a fence. *Squints down at clipboard. Squints up at completely destroyed fence.* “Okay, yeah meets standards. That’ll be a 3.”
Like, a bottle of whiskey under the desk? My work has a fridge full of beers for happy hour Fridays.
I've worked at places that do that as well, however this employer has a strict policy regarding drugs, weapons, and alcohol on-site. They also weren't only storing it either....
Wait - is my home office considered a workplace? (looks over to the liquor cabinet next to my desk, just out of shot of my Zoom camera)
Liquor is a business expense for HR professionals. Or at least it should be. This week is finally over.
Our HR director "resigned". He was an ass. It's pretty sad when **no one** in the entire organization likes the Director of HR. We were sooo happy when he left. We've had issues with a couple of recruiters where they ended up *leaving*. We have had to terminate a couple of part-time staff. I think it hits hard when HR staff members have performance issues.
I’ve seen HR people terminated for performance (many), for falsifying time, for falling for a massive phishing scam, for helping a job candidate cheat, and for flipping the fuck out. I don’t hold myself to any “special” standards but I do try to be reliable, steady and calm in time of chaos.
There was an HR director in my area that worked for a local municipality and she got fired because she pushed someone of their rolling chair and that person broke their tailbone. Soooo yeah it happens
Holy shit. I’d term anyone for that, but wtf was the director thinking when she basically assaulted an employee??
Exactly! And it was on the local news so she's screwed. She's not gonna be in this field anymore. I know the woman she pushed, and she is a big jerk, but that's doesn't make it right. Also, you're the HR director of the city. wtf!? Lol
I guess there’s insane people in every field… wow
I work in local government. I've seen a lot of things. I'm actually not surprised in the least that happened.
Really! That's interesting lol
I’d call the cops for that
My HR manager was fired when I was a generalist because she couldn’t stop arguing with the president and talking shit about the company to anyone who came in her office
I went through the exact same! She absolutely refused to align with leaderships’s business strategy 🤯
I’ve seen HR professionals get fired (and be the one firing) for multiple reasons. Most have tended to be breaching confidentiality (Sharing specific employee relations matters to people they shouldn’t, falsifying paperwork, knowingly violating a type of employment law) but I’ve also seen others get fired for performance and simple laziness. We are held to a higher standard and it’s more common than you would think for HR to be in the same situations we are the ones handling. What’s the saying do as I say not as I do?
I was termed from an HR Manager job after about 3 months. It was pretty evident that it was not a very good cultural fit pretty quickly. Admittedly, I wasn’t picking up what they wanted me to do and I always found myself on the other side of many decisions being made at the top. I was given a horrific evaluation by the senior hr manager and I was asked to leave early, take the weekend and think about whether I wanted the job or not. I decided to come back and really dedicate myself to the role and did make some improvements but their minds were already made up at that point, I think. I was treated very coldly and termed right after annual enrollment. Fortunately I landed on my feet and went back to my previous employer as an hr manager. I was not perfect and certainly deserved it but the way I was treated and the names I was called during that evaluation sent me to therapy up to two years after. The real kicker is that the plant called me about 1.5 years after to let me know that the hr manager who termed me had left the position and if I would be interested in coming back. I firmly turned it down. I write this lengthy story because it’s a little therapeutic, but I use my experience there as a lesson, not only for me in my own career, but how I treat others who may find themselves in a similar position. It stinks having to fire somebody, but it can still be done with dignity. I made a promise to myself in my own career to never treat my employees or others that I find myself needing to terminate the way I was treated there. So yes, I’m jn HR, I’ve been terminated and it was due to my own actions but I count it as a lesson learned.
This is almost exactly what is happening to me right now.
how can they fire you and hire you back. a lot of company’s put that not eligible to hire for everyone they fire lol
I guess it depends on the company. My current company will rehire you even if you’ve been terminated for attendance. Once it gets into gross negligence, major policy violations, etc, then you cross into the not rehireable category. For my instance my wishful thinking is that maybe they didn’t think I was so bad after all but the reality is that I think that they wanted somebody who was familiar with their niche industry and were getting desperate lol. Not going to lie though, it felt good to get that call because I felt worthless for a while after getting termed.
Not me but the woman whose job I took was fired. Consistently late with all deadlines and difficult to work with. She was not liked by the vast majority.
Yes, a few. My current position, major Payroll f\*ck up that affected the VP of HR. My last position, one person got termed for lying in an email, and the other for asking for someone's age and then telling them, "Nevermind, I can look it up anyway!"
Wow on that last part! A recruiter doofus at an old job used to ask my age all the time. I don't discuss or ask personal details so I refused to tell her. She said she could look it up anyway and got really riled when I warned her not to. She wouldn't have gotten fired anyhow. She was the manager's pet and sat around on her arse most of the day anyway. Pathetic.
Yeah, it was bold as hell. The one thing I remember about her is that she had SO MUCH SHIT at work she basically needed to back up a uhaul while we were waiting for her to leave.
Can you elaborate on the payroll fuckup? I’ve fucked that up quite a few times and found that it’s more manageable to fix than other things (like ER or confidential data leak).
I can’t - I didn’t investigate.
Not me but the HR Manager that hired me was walked out 2 weeks after I started. They found out she'd been using the company card for personal purchases and had signed her family up for health insurance outside of her eligibility period. I didn't know any of what was going on until it was all over. It was real awkward because they made me pack up her office and drive the box to her house. She recovered, though. A few years later when I was looking for a new job, I made it to the final round of interviews and saw her name included in the meeting invite. I mentioned to the recruiter that I knew her and a few hours later I was told that I was no longer being considered for the position. Apparently she held a grudge.
OMG, my jaw dropped at this one! Why couldn’t you just mail the box?
It was cheaper for them to pay me mileage than shipping.
Smh.. punished you for her own wrongdoing.
lmaoo HR folks are so petty. she screwed up and then caused you to lose a job that you qualified for lol. it’s a who you know environment for sure. she learned her lesson and probably did better.
No. She didn’t want you telling the new company she was fired and why.
Not me, but I had to aid in terminating my HR director at my first job because she never came to work and/or turned in things on time. It was mind blowing
I had a new job that I ended up getting fired from after a couple months for missing too much work. I was dealing with multiple surgeries and health diagnoses, and didn't really care for the work I was doing, and called out one too many times I guess. I probably could have tried to get some kind of ADA accommodation but I was in a bad state mentally and physically and hated the job, so I just kinda let it happen.
I got placed on a PIP for being stretched too thin (covering multiple roles, so I started missing things). Walked before they had the chance to term. But I have seen multiple coworkers terminated. Deduction fuck ups, general incompetence, and laziness were the usual causes, and all were self inflicted terminations.
Ugh this is happening to me right now. I work at a startup of 150 employees & the hr dept is just me & my manager. They have me doing at least 2 other full time jobs without compensating me. I recently had an employee tell me I never respond to them on time bc I’m being stretched out way too thin.
I’m so sorry to hear that. If it helps, I just made post it’s of all my reach outs, and would bang em out at the end of the day. Even if it’s a “hey, I’m working on this”, and you follow up more in depth later, it usually helps when you’re out of pocket for prolonged periods.
I appreciate the advice. I also feel a lot of my coworkers see me as a maid just bc I’m in HR - they expect me to do the smallest stuff for them. Also doesn’t help that I’m the only person of color in the office 🙃
I've seen many HR professionals get fired over the years. Everything from personality/cultural fit issues to general incompetence. I was terminated from my first job as a business partner early in my career after about a year. They didn't give me a reason (was paid a substantial amount of severance) and I was never put through any progressive discipline but I have my suspicions why. Basically, they posted for an HR Business Partner opening but only wanted someone with 2 years as an HR Coordinator (which is all I had). I assumed they were planning on really training the incumbent and help them become a business partner, but I received very little coaching. As a result, I made a few minor mistakes and my confidence in my decisions fell. By the time I was fired, I was walking on eggshells with everything I did and said, and felt like I had to run everything by my boss. She cried during the termination meeting and I'm still not 100% sure what ultimately led to the decision. Thankfully I got a new job at a similar level (where they were willing to coach me) within a month and after a few years, I was able to (mostly) get over the damage that experience did to my confidence in my abilities. Now I'm really valued as a business partner at my company.
Same. When you interviewed for your current role, What was your reason for ‘leaving’ the previous position?
They reposted for a different role so thankfully I was able to say my role was eliminated, which was technically true. I also had a director from the company willing to give me a positive reference, which was helpful.
Not me, but my predecessor at a previous job was let go for messing up medical withholding for someone so badly that we gave them thousands of dollars in free healthcare.
Was the person enrolled wrong? Our insurers always honor fixing data feeds or things like that. Adjust the invoice and back date coverage. Was this something different?
They were enrolled correctly, but the withholding on their paycheck was wrong. And it was someone who elected very expensive benefits. Over the course of many months it added up to thousands the company should have withheld from the person's paycheck but didn't, so the options were to either eat that money or ask the employee if we can 2x or 3x withholding for a while.
Seems harsh to me to terminate for something like this. It’s a run of the mill mistake and while I agree payroll should be triple checked every time, we are all human.
It was a staffing company and the employee was a contractor, so it literally negated the company's profits. Also it was a final straw sort of situation.
Ahh wow, I guess that does make a difference. My first resort would be to try and recover the missed deductions. Not sure if I’m too lenient.
Yeah, that was her final task after scouting and hiring a replacement (me).
Not me but we had a coordinator who got fired for making up holidays to take time off and consistent mess ups, not being present when his superiors were calling him.
making up holidays? Holy cow. that is some Zack and Cody level shenanigans right there.
Ok so not me, but I was an HR manager for a small manufacturing plant. The Director got fired for groping a customer at a networking event. She was insanely drunk and there were multiple witnesses. This was her first time at this particular networking group. There were tons is other issues obviously but I can’t even imagine what went through her head….
I have gotten candid feedback from folks I support saying they had assumed some things like disciplinary action and performance mgmt etc don’t apply to HR. So I think it’s great for anyone stopping by this page to read these stories. Anyone can be susceptible to factors that impact us at work (our own doing or things happening to us) and can lead to getting fired. HR absolutely should be held to the same high standards as anyone else who handles confidential / time sensitive / life impacting important info all day everyday.
Agreed!
Totally agree. I’m fairly new to HR (4 years in after 10 years in other fields but I have pretty transferable skills and my boss took a chance on me) and I find this whole thread fascinating. One of the many reasons I love HR is because of the standard we set for the whole workforce community. My HR colleagues are stellar professionals and good hearted people that understand what is at stake. They have taught me everything I know about HR. It definitely motivates me to try my best and do my job well to stay in this role as long as I can!
but they don’t. a lot of them are allowed to resign and start over. while a regular employee has to tell the same hr folks why they were fired which 9/10 will end with them not getting the job lol. Never met anybody that was hired after admitting they were fired….unless they knew someone.
Not me but my hr manager. Would come into the office late most mornings, sip her sbucks at her desk for a while and then wander off for hours. Could never quite figure out exactly what she did all day. She was actually on a pip due to her performance but finally resigned one day without notice. Just emailed our director, left her badge behind, and walked out. I ran into her years later and she pretended not to know me. Lol!
I haven't, but I have been involved in two HR terminations. One was a corporate HR manager who oversaw one of our manufacturing facilities. We had multiple complaints come from that facility of favoritism and the leadership over there turning a blind eye to unethical or even dangerous behaviors occurring from some of the entry-level manufacturing ees. We investigated and multiple times it came down to this one plant manager, who there was not quite enough evidence to point to him doing anything wrong but his name came up in so many complaints. Turns out he was super close with the HR manager and on our final investigation found out that she had been covering for him covering for his favorites. She was let go. The other one was a woman in the operations area (working with our HRIS) who just wasn't good at her job. To be fair, she came from TA and her role was eliminated and she was offered this entry-level role on the HRIS team and she just couldn't grasp it.
A former colleague of mine was terminated because she shared some confidential data. But I believe it was a mistake, but still got fired.
Yes, I was let go from a previous employer in my first job. My role required that I enter all new hire information and I got behind on submitting I-9s.
I’ve had to term two HR reps in my career. One for my performance, and one for inappropriate conduct. But at my old company HR turnaround wasn’t common but it did happen and for a variety of reasons just like any other position.
No for me personally, but I’ll tell you some stories over my career. A specialist I hired wouldn’t do one category of the work assigned, messed up auditing for benefits deductions from OE, and tried to change my boss’s policy without asking on a program that also affected another department. Had to term as when corrected, she was defensive and didn’t understand the impact. A coordinator I inherited shared comp data with a supervisor level employee without clearing it when we only shared at the manager level and above at the time. I had to term for that, but she was already on thin ice. There were other mistakes I was later informed about that were unacceptable and she didn’t know how to use excel when she had told the team in her interview she did (I didn’t hire her and wouldn’t have). A friend worked at a place where the CHRO was fired for denying reasonable accommodations after a lawsuit. A boss of mine fired a contractor because she was driving all of her stakeholders crazy while trying to go above and beyond on her goals. I was consulted by my boss before the decision was made. Brilliant jerk problem. An exec boss of mine was fired after a lot of bad behavior- making female employees cry in convos, laying me off in retaliation post a short medical leave caused by work & reporting the next item, going into the office when it was illegal during the start of COVID, not delivering on goals, not really working.
I was involuntarily termed after 3 months due to “the role being too senior” and various other reasons including performance. Which was mind boggling as all feedback I got prior was that I was a good hire, was doing well etc. it shattered me. That was 2 years ago. I set out after that to prove them wrong and come back. Well guess what? They posted the position again 12 hours ago. I emailed my previous manager and c suite of what challenges I took on and the passion I still had for the company cause I do. Literally asked if I’m barred from life from working there. Not even sure if they will hire me again. They might. If so, I’m 10x more experienced and 4x certified with a masters than when they hired me 2 years prior.
Thanks for sharing! Glad you bounced back and used the experience as motivation to better yourself and further your career.
Of course! It was a hard hill to climb, and I’m hoping they give me a shot. If so, I’ll come full circle and maybe finally be at peace with an event that literally shattered my professional life. It’s so odd to say a company has such a pull over me but it does.
Why would you want to go back somewhere that either 1. they would rather fire you than give you honest feedback and training to address subpar performance OR 2. Blame your performance for your firing if it was for an unrelated reason, resulting in 2 years of self doubt ?
Good question! When I was hired there 2 years prior they never had an HR Manager and was in the process of building up the department. There was a generalist there who split the time between HR and being an EA for a C suite. Upon arrival I had the generalist and the front desk person under me. Both already had beef with each other on a high school level that I was unable to resolve as my generalist was talking crap after work with coworkers about the other. When they hired the HR above me (2 months in) I notified them of the situation, asked for assistance since I couldn't get through to them and noted several confidentiality issues with the generalist that essentially leads to a term. Well, they didn't term instead "set expectations" with the generalist; I'm still getting good feedback that I did the right thing, it was a sticky situation (I was about to fire them both cause they couldn't work things out in the same room with a neutral party involved). Then one random afternoon I was let go despite my pile list of things I was working on as my generalist was on vacation and I had done more than what was asked of me. I was never given a clear answer as to WHY I was let go just "Some concerning things came about, you don't fit the culture, poor performance, you are not advanced enough for this role", along with several other reasons. When I filed for unemployment, I couldn't put one single reason why it happened. It was like someone trying not to blame me for breaking up with me. Fast forward a month, the front desk person is fired and fast forward a few more months, the generalist is fired as well. It's been over a year now since they are both gone, so I figure if that is what caused my separation, that roadblock is no longer there. Not advanced? I've been through the fire 4 times now and handled things on my own. I've proven myself far more worthy than I did 2 years ago. Sure it caused self doubt (still does) but it weirdly pushes me to prove to them I was the right choice all along. I have been writing papers for my grad degree on their company, their international reach as cannabis becomes legalized and more. I can guarantee no one in that candidate pool will be able to recite 10 years of history and the evolution thereafter for that company quite like I can. I attended every event despite the sorrow I felt deep down that I wasn't part of the team who created it. It's a passion I found that I never had with a company before this one and I will shoot my shot to get back in instead of being bitter and resentful. Even if it takes me to being the top HR person and replacing the person who fired me in 2022 to do it. I don't expect anyone to understand this. But when we have to go to work and pay bills, when you find somewhere you vibe with and are happy (all my photos from that time are genuine happiness for the first time since working at 15) you will do anything to get that back especially in HR. If that means I'm on contract for 6 months to prove myself, so be it. If it means a salary cut, so be it. If it means traveling 75% of the time, so be it.
No, but a CHRO was let go for super sketchy hiring practices, along with every single one of the super sketchy senior leaders he hired. That was a fun day.
I had to term the HR director that hired me for being abusive … to me… lol. That was awkward.
Ah lest I forget, she also wired two off cycle payments to her account in the amount of 10k when she was under investigation. Literally through the HRIS system lol. I couldn’t believe the audacity.
Crazy to think she didn’t expect anyone to find/come across that … lol
That’s fucking insane. WHAT?! Like who *does* that?And even worse, thinks they could get away with it??
I think HR are encouraged to resign before any formal action is taken. We might even be offered a settlement/severance because we know where the skeletons are!
isn’t that not fair lol?
I worked at a place that launched an investigation (I was interviewed) because the HRD went on vacation and the Assistant Director thought that was the perfect time to smack talk and try and get him fired. Assistant Director is the one who ended up fired (totally deserved, the HRD was much loved).
Ummm well not me because I really try to walk the line with all of this but an hr manager was mysteriously fired or quit one day (rumor was embezzlement but why knows?), then a specialist for basically doing nothing and stealing time for another person, one for hacking someone else's account on our work social network and sent threatening messages to certain employees (she signed her name), and another for helping another employee steal time
Woah.. sent threatening messages with her name on it? And hacking someone else’s account? That’s absurd. What was the final straw that took her to get fired?
That was her final straw. She had been doing little things here and there but she was instantly let go when the relevant parties reported her
I got fired once for "making too many mistakes". They quoted one payroll mistake I made 4 months prior, which I admitted and fixed it immediately. The employee didn't even notice and had no problem. Then they quoted other people's mistakes that they expected me to catch. That includes several of my bosses own mistakes and apparently I didn't catch them for her..... It was BS and they knew it. They told me they won't fight unemployment. They did it the day I came back from my honeymoon. The boss hired her friends son to replace me, who started a few days later....
Companies like this really need to hope and pray they’re never the ones who end up without a job, because the karma that would be coming their way would be brutal.
fired multiple hrbps who didn’t understand the business, gave bad advice, didn’t own up to mistakes then lied about it.
Banged the boss’s wife in the broom closet. He found out.
Oh wow. 😂😂😂
It’s not HR’s job to reprimand people? That’s the job of a manger.
HR is involved in disciplinary action, though. That’s what I meant.
I had to term 2 people on my team over 6 years in my last job. 1 was recruiter for poor performance. She basically ignored any instructions given to her and did whatever she felt like. 2nd was an hr gen for stealing time. She would leave early or come in late everyday and would change her time card to read full 8 hours (hourly employee). Not sure why she thought she could get away w it but insta termed.
I’m an the investigations COE at my company. HR definitely gets fired for cause. I had a case 2 months ago end that way
All the things I should’ve been fired for as an HRC were due to shit or lack of training by my generalist. They were promoted to HRBP through nepotism of best friend IRL making the position for them. They’ve cost the company over 500k by hiring clear workers comp scam people who she believed every word of and painted picture that it was companies fault when. It wasn’t. We’ve been trying to get her fired because she’s so bad that her employees come 1 mile down the road to a DIFFERENT COMPANY BUILSING. To ask for HR support from a different team from a. Different branch of the company
Replaced an HR Manager that had been in place for 8 months. During that time 30% of new hires didn't have e-verify run. Another 30% (not always the same ee's) were not offered benefits on time. EE docs were just stacked in a drawer. Site leadership and employees unaware of policies and standards. State required sick leave policy not established. Just started as a replacement to an HR Director. unable to verify that e-verify was run on any EE's in last 6 months, COBRA not sent for last 6 months. Benefit enrollment spotty in same period. Predecessor decided to dump payroll/HRIS system the company had been using for 12 years because they didn't want to learn that system. Appears they didn't know anything about how to implement/transition properly. Went to ADP WFN. Benefit enrollment flows, carrier connections not setup, most employee category info not setup, WC codes put in NAICS field, onboarding not setup. Many years ago promoted into a benefits role because the incumbent didn't bother to term employees from the carriers, for over a year. That one also resulted in the exiting of the B&C Director and the Sr Director of HR/Payroll. Had to let a recruiter go one time because they didn't quite get that the company hired the recruiter to not be using temp agencies. Recently was going to place a Generalist on a PIP for poor performance, they NCNS instead. Generally, HR doesn't get canned because we know how to exit gracefully, and in full compliance with all exit requirements to maximize the separation.
Worked for a company as a HR temp and ran a benefits audit and got them $65,000 in back premiums.
Terminate for attendance. I was always habitually a late person to work. But I was always tired and sleepy. Little did I know I had severe obstructive sleep apnea. One CPAP later I’m a morning person and one of the first in the office haha
I was not working in an HR role, but having been in HR for 15 years, I brought up some….issues with departmental function/leadership that would be easy to fix and have a great payoff in employee satisfaction (which was, and remains a huge problem). I was fired for insubordination because I was “being negative” for voicing known problems and potential solutions. Where am I now? Director of Operations somewhere else. Much happier. And delighted that when I bring up an issue and potential solutions I am heard, respected, and given healthy feedback on proceeding with making changes.
I was terminated from a previous company where I worked as an HR Generalist. The HR Director that hired me was terminated for trying to enforce covid policies (company was privately owned and much of the executive team thought it was a joke). Not long after that they brought in a new manager who terminated me because she didn’t like me. Only reason she could give for my termination was I didn’t “fit” with her direction for the company. She terminated me over the phone at lunchtime on a Friday 🙄 Now years later I’m with a new organization and couldn’t be happier. That company and their leadership was absolutely toxic and they have lost almost all of their best employees since.
Actually my first big boy full time time was in HR for a gym chain. I was the techie of the team so I made that my lane and eventually got some bs Project Coordinator position that was eventually “redundant” I was young and very vocal about issues in the office. One day I might’ve gotten too comfortable with my manager (which had never happened before) bad mouthing the director and soon after I sent an email to the company COO (who was over HR) about the issues I felt were creating a negative experience and I think the following Monday they fired me. Hella nepotism; my manager was really just my manager because her dad was a regional chain manager. Otherwise, she didn’t gaf about our work and was really not present except when her direct reports (who were all women and mostly data entry people) messed up or something unintentional. Directors husband was this older dude that didn’t understand hr tech but would love to question me (he was nice. I just hated the imposed authority because his husband was the director) I was on track to automate most of the roles tbh. But looking back, it’s def my fault for getting a bit too comfortable and contrarian. But I was young and didn’t know how to play the game lol But in hindsight one of the best things to happen - 2 jobs later and I make way more than the director himself who fired me and the manager who didn’t give a fuck about our careers or wellbeing. Since then “family owned” in job descriptions has scared me away lol it’s hard to be your own person and navigate working for people who all know/are related to each other somehow
Did tech support at my previous job….thought I was muted. I wasn’t muted 😂.
Not yet
Not me personally but I'm an HR manager and I've fired people in HR before.
maybe...not those examples, but made an (innocent) mistake that was caught many years into my service that would have had another correct way to accomplish the same thing..... they claimed misconduct (that they viewed it somehow as stealing from them) and terminated me. What's odd is at the time the mistake was made I cleared it with the CEO who was also an attorney and we both read the "rules" the same way. Later he left, i was terminated and I talked to him about it and he stated "if we had known that, we would have just done it a different (legal) way". But they also were trying to get to him through me..... In the end I fixed it personally on my side so the company felt NO cost or liability to the tune of a 5 digit personal check within 7 days of finding the problem. I took the higher ground. It sucked, but I can sleep at night....what's so odd is this same employer KNEW me and my ethics and instead of working with me, threatened me and terminated without ever getting my side of the story. Again it sucked...but I learned a lot and know that i personally am in a much better place now.
Walked into a place that had 150 out of 220 I-9s incorrect. Most staff have terminated from that time period and the forms past the 3 years retention period now. Shred fest for me. We had a HR / Payroll Manager that was never in the office for three years. I’m still filing 2019 items to this day.
Yeah. I used to work in a produce section. A lot of the vegetables that come in have dry ice on them to keep them cold during long distance trips. When I was 19 years old, I took all of the dry ice off the boxes that contain the vegetables and put them in the giant produce sink, then turned the hot water on the whole stack. This made an enormous cloud of dry ice smoke and, fun fact, you can’t breathe that stuff. The sink was completely obscured by the smoke, so I couldn’t get close enough to the sink to shut the water off. The eventual result was that the entire produce section had tule fog like it was Halloween. Apparently the store manager wasn’t amused and I got let go.
Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide you can kill youself by suffocating if it goes in the air
Yeah, as I observed.
We fired an HR lady because she had a nasty attitude and everyone was afraid of her. She didn't want to deal with people so she wouldn't answer her phone when people called her. She actually told me about it and was laughing about it.