A Former HR Employee’s Story

“I can attest to Christopher’s allegations as a former employee in Human Resources. It was common practice to do everything possible to dismiss an employee if they were able to perceive what was really going on at the center, if they “knew too much” already, or if they weren’t personally liked by management. If management had the slightest inkling that you had them figured out, then the disciplinary inquest would begin to find flaws in your performance so that termination could be recommended. This recommendation had to be approved by the corporate office before it could be executed.

In my case, termination was recommended after I had used my temporary managerial signing authority to approve two hospital bills from an employee who had been injured on the job. This employee had initially refused to visit the local hospital emergency room, but followed the directive by his immediate manager to be evaluated. His treatment was not covered under his insurance plan or the Workman’s Compensation program that was currently in place. The first reimbursement got approved for the employee and processed without question. The second did not get processed even though I had all approval signatures and followed the same procedure as I did for the first. The Finance Manger had “noticed” this was an unusual situation after already processing the first reimbursement, and had disagreed with the employees request after the fact. He did not like me personally because I wouldn’t give his dysfunctional accountant the “special treatment” she expected. Instead of telling her to stop complaining and whining about how she didnt think I “liked her”, he blamed his inability as a manager to correctly discipline her for gossiping in the workplace on me, and was constantly looking for ways to get me into trouble. Anyway, the employee reimbursement issue was determined to be my fault.

My termination recommendation was so lame and without merit that it was obviously denied by the corporate office, but shortly before this my poor excuse for a “manager” asked me if everything was o.k. because I had been unusually quiet in the office. I’m sure she was able to sense that I had things figured out, since I wanted as little dialogue with her as possible. This same “manager” joined my health club a few weeks later. I did not attempt to engage in any contact with her on a social level, but still gave her the required “respect” of a direct report while in the workplace. I think this confirmed to her what she had originally suspected, and termination was again recommended for me after I inadvertently reported foul  language being used while attempting to accomplish a task with a nearly impossible deadline. This task was completed, but the decision was already made to proceed with termination. It was proven during a DUA hearing that there was no misconduct or willful disregard to the employer units best interest. The state of Massachusetts ruled in my favor, and I won my case.
The only positive aspect of being employed there was that the workplace was only a two minute commute, which worked out well during the 2008 gas crisis. The dental plan was also good, but I hated every second of working there. The pay scale was low, and only the employees who were “robotic” and agreed with everything management said and did were eligible for merit increases and the monthly awards that were given out. That was the price, and those were the payoffs.

The most contradictory element in all employee relations was the evaluation process. No matter how positive or “perfect” an employee’s performance was, there had to be something negative included as an “area needing improvement”. If nothing was documented in this area, the evaluation would be sent back to the reporting manager, and “something wrong” would have to be found. However, the results of the 2009 audit by the Office Of The Inspector General revealed that management was falsifying statistics and inflating numbers to continue to receive funding from Congress.

The Department Of Labor also conducted a separate investigation which revealed that hourly employees were not being compensated for working through lunch breaks, along with not being paid their legal overtime rate beyond 40 weekly hours. If overtime hours were recorded on a time card, or if a lunch break not taken, the time card would be rejected and a “correction” would be required before it could be processed for payroll. How could their “policies” regarding employee evaluations (or anything else) be respected if they were ordered by the DOL to reimburse hourly employees thousands of dollars in overtime back pay (some employees received in excess of $2,000.00), and their false reporting resulted in reprimands from the OIG and fines of over $14,000.00?”

Filed under: Department of Labor, DOL, Employees, Job Corps, OIG Reports, Reader's Comments, wage and hour investigations, Audit, dismiss, DOL, employee evaluations, employee reimbursement, Finance Manager, Job Corps former employee, Job Corps termination, Office of the Inspector General, State of Massachusetts, U.S. Department of Labor, Workmen's Compensation