15 Nov 2019
Anonymous employee
Technovert Response
6yWe all make mistakes. Hiring mistakes too. Except they cause damage to both parties - the employer and the employee. Lost time and lost relationship. And then some bad PR on Glassdoor like this one. I would like to believe that in your case, more than incompetence or anything else it was of misfit and mismatched expectations between us. I hope you understand and take it that way instead of false emotion take play.
Four months since you left us, you took time to write this review and that shows it left a heartburn for you. I feel sorry about that. It has been likewise this side too and far worse. For, you weren't another employee. You were in a HR Manager role.
We hired this HR Manager with expectations that she would represent the employees in the organization when dealing with management. We have been a growing organization that also needed to set a lot of HR operational processes in place. We then believed that this HR manager given her prior degree and pedigree of having worked in a large organization would bring such changes. That the person would lend an ear to employee voices and offer solutions.
Except it didn’t work that way. What were key essentials such as Emotional Intelligence and problem solving were overlooked in the interview. We made a mistake there and we suffered. The person having only worked in an already set process, haven't had experience of setting up processes from scratch. Given the little experience and age, the person also lacked the emotional maturity needed to deal with employee grievances. The HR Manager who was there to assist employees, herself would become part of the problem and had issues with employees!
1) A junior employee plays a little sarcasm with her, she would 'give it back' to the person in a fitting manner. Not what I am used to or expect from a HR person. I expect the person to have enough self-esteem to take things on a lighter vein and have enough sense of humor.
2) An ex-employee once sends me a message saying that the HR Manager has been rude in clearing pending formalities. I knew he was a pesky person. So what? I would still expect me or my HR team to deal with him as amicably as we can. But that's not the case with this HR Manager. She takes it personal. And when I ask about it, she starts complaining I don't trust her. Are we both not on same side, responsible for employee issues ?
In both the above cases, when I give the feedback as the CEO of the organization, it boomerangs back on me as lack of trust on the person. If a top most person is not able to give any feedback who else in the organization can give any inputs to this HR Manager?
I see few issues raised in this post. About Gratuity, ESI and not paying an absconding employee etc. Aren't these all responsibilities of the HR Manager? While the founders are ultimately responsible, why would the founders deal with these issues at all at operational level?
The very allegations in the post demonstrates this person's lack of knowledge in general.
1) ESI is paid for lower wage employees. All our employees are paid salaries beyond the wage limits and they also have additional medical insurance cover. Where is the question of non-compliance of ESI? Only exception being interns. That's an issue?
2) I do not know whose gratuity you are speaking of. It was your responsibility to raise and escalate it if it missed our notice or the process.
3) Every company that has a subsidiary always have resources shared and accounted between the group entities and we are no exception. Your ignorance shows yet again.
4) We don't have as much a fancy office as you claim. Its just done with a bit of creativity at lower cost. What's wrong about showcasing it? Did we ever lie to anyone about where they work? Silly thing to point out isn't it?
5) What's wrong with paying 100% variable bonuses to employees? I don't understand your problem there. Having a flat hierarchy that wasn't scaling, we were in short of management bandwidth in doing effective performance reviews and didn’t want the employee to suffer. So we were paying. What's the grouse here?
6) An employee sends a resignation notice and leaves the same day. If that's not absconding, what else is?
I am sure you would have done well or are doing great in a different setting. But that was not the case here. The lack of process and uncertainty of a startup environment poses an opportunity for those willing to take on challenges and learn. And they thrive and grow in their careers. For others that come from a cog-in-the-wheel setting, it just seems total confusion. You belonged to that second category by your own writing. Most issues you pointed out were great opportunities for you as HR Manager to own up, fix and feel proud about for rest of your career.
I feel sorry that we are both having to settle scores in a public setting like this. I prefer to not get into any hostile terms with any employee whether they are current or former. I tried the same with you as much as my time permitted. I admit I have been a failure though and I will work to improve myself going forward. I wish you good luck and hope your new job gets the best of you.
-Vijay