HR Undercover

There once was an executive team that always asked “why can’t the employees just stop complaining and do what they should do”. This is a tale of why the employees wouldn’t.

The company was moving to a new building 35 miles away. Although the employees were excited about moving into a new building, many were going to have a much longer commute. In spite of this, a group of employees worked tirelessly to make the move a success giving up much of their own time to make it happen.

The executive team wanted to thank the group for all of their hard work. A special lunch was planned by the HR Director away from the office – this would be a great chance for the executives to say THANK YOU! The HR Director was sure the lunch was on each executive’s calendar and all accepted. The day of the party came and the employees started arriving. The HR Director anxiously awaited the arrival of the executives. Thirty minutes after the lunch was supposed to start the HR Director went ahead with the lunch – without the executives. Not one of the executives showed accept the CEO who showed up just as people were leaving.

The HR Director thought long and hard. How did she make the executives understand why it was so important for them to show respect for the employees and follow through on their promises. She came up with a grand idea.

At the next weekly executive meeting, the HR Director brought in hats – all kinds of hats, fire fighter hat, police hat, baseball hat, jockey hat, sailor hat and many others. When the executives came into the room they started trying them on and laughing. “What was this about?” they asked. The HR Director said “We all wear different hats depending on who we are dealing with”. She picked up the fire fighter’s hat and said “we wear this hat when we talk to investors” then she picked up another hat and said “we wear this hat when we deal with the Board of Directors”. A third hat was picked up “this is the hat we wear when we work with the employees – it is as important as any other hat we wear”. The HR Director looked directly at the CEO – he was red in the face. Oh no, this was not going to end well… and so it didn’t. He jumped up and starting yelling at the HR Director – “how dare you try to tell us how to do our jobs”. He continued to rant and rave and the HR Director left in tears.

The next day, the HR Director went to see the CEO. He greeted her warmly and said “well, I guess you really told them yesterday, it is a lesson that THEY should learn. The HR Director was stunned – the CEO had completely talked himself into believing that he wasn’t the problem but the HR Director knew he was the biggest problem of all.

Lesson Learned: Even a grand communication idea only works if the person is not delusional.