I was working as a department representative for all business facets in a field based position. I was the travel agent, project accountant, client liaison, executive assistant, and local human resource manager for 60 – 160+ personnel. My least favorite hat was the HR one. My employees would come to me with needs and more times than not, I would be the bearer of unnecessarily bad news. Time after time, I saw the impact of the callous and oft unhelpful responses to the real needs my employees presented. It created immediate tensions and distracted the productive collaborations that had previously been present.
My employees recognized my frustrations, as did my local leaders. They hated having to ask HR for anything, too! It was (not so) privately referred to as the Department of Obstruction. I didn’t like that my employees were becoming hesitant to bring forward their legitimate concerns because they didn’t want me to be frustrated. That didn’t sit well with me.
One evening, one of my employees came to my desk with a serious concern. His wife was on her way to the emergency room with their son who had likely broken his arm at ball practice. She didn’t know where their health insurance card was and couldn’t go home to look for it. My employee, her husband, did not have his card on him and needed a copy for her as soon as possible! I called my HR Department and miraculously they answered, even though it was 5:05. My glee was quickly dashed. They’d already shut down their computer, but would email me a copy of the card when they got back, TOMORROW! I’d previously accessed the benefits programs for other tasks, so I asked if I could get into the back end, myself. They happily obliged and gave me the credentials I needed to access the health card database. And that was it. I was one step closer to my goal of circumventing their obstruction. I had a card printed for the employee and a copy emailed to his wife while she sat in the waiting room of the hospital.
It didn’t take long for more opportunities for self-reliance to present themselves and I worked tirelessly to capitalize on each one. My local management team fully supported my efforts and I was given authority to take on more HR functions, directly. The more I supported my team, the more we stood apart from the other lines. Our employees had better attendance, better performance, fewer injuries, and less turn-over. We were a well-oiled machine and Senior Leadership began to take note. Within a year, all of our product lines had collaborative local HR reps and the people that had been in the Department of Obstruction were long gone.
Overall, the company flourished and we had some of the strongest years recorded. We were so successful, the company was sold for an incredible profit. Unfortunately, the buyers were focused on acquiring our physical assets more than our people. The new leadership team would comfortably mislead or manipulate employees. After experiencing a positive and collaborative work system, I could not accept less and I resigned. Apparently, many of my coworkers felt the same way. After acquiring an incredible organization, the buyers experienced a near catastrophic hostile poaching of their staff, later releasing the company in a cashless sale to a struggling competitor, with the final chapter being an unfortunate corporate bankruptcy.
The experience was invaluable. I witnessed the first-hand success and failure of a major corporation based largely on the treatment of the people it represented. I want to see businesses succeed, so I’ve made it my mission to show leaders the value within their people.
Very relevant in the present times where so many companies seem to be using the covid situation as an excuse to cut services and to furlough or lay off staff.