HR Vs. Employee : "Who Goofed Here?''

🙈🙍

 

Recently, a friend shared her experience with me. She asked my advice on how to go about getting was she believed was her dues from an employer she had worked with for a year now.

 

THE STORY

 

My friend was shortlisted for a role as a Software developer with a start up company. During salary negotiations with HR, it was agreed that since the organisation could not pay her asking salary at the start, they would however review it upwards after the completion of a six month employment period and upon a successful appraisal exercise.

 

A letter was issued by HR stating this and my friend (The employee) signed the employment contract. She, however, was not given KPIs or performance metrics at the commencement of the employment period.

 

The six months period ended and the employee demanded a performance review as agreed. The HR handed her an appraisal form to complete with her supervisor. Now, this was the first time she would be seeing the set of performance metrics on the appraisal document and she queried HR about this. HR responded nonchalantly that she was issued a job description and that is expected to suffice. At that point, my friend had started losing trust for HR and the company work culture and practices.

 

She, however, proceeded with her performance appraisal with the Line Manager and at the end of the exercise, she scored sixty five percent in technical competence and thirty five percent in behavioural competencies.

 

The results were forwarded to HR for final implementation and with expectations for a salary review of her current remuneration.

 

It took HR about a month to feedback on the results of the performance appraisal. My friend was patient all this while. However, to her utmost dismay, her salary was reviewed with a paltry 20% increase on her base pay. This sum was in no way near what her asking remuneration was before accepting the employment. Now she is at crossroads.

What should she do?

 

1. Should she accept the small increase in remuneration and start searching for a job elsewhere
2. Should she sue the organisation for breach of contract? but then, does she have evidences to win the case in court?

After my discussion with my friend, she agreed to have learnt her lessons and would be more circumspect before accepting any employment going forward.

 

LESSONS LEARNT

 

• Ensure to get a signed employment contract documenting all that has been agreed before the start of employment
• Key Performance Indicators or performance metrics must be given and agreed by the two parties latest a month of employment
• Remuneration must be broken down in detail and all salary components captured accordingly on paper and signed
• Performance appraisal policy must be shared with the employee to have an overview of the criteria for performance rating. This would erase any ambiguity of the rating scale.
• Never to accept an employment on the basis of word of mouth especially when compensation is involved.

 

FOR THE HR DIRECTOR

 

He goofed too, right? Well, for staters, he has:

• lost an worker's trust and created a disengaged employee
• created a work culture that is not friendly, a culture of bad employee experience practices
• reduced talent attraction for job vacancies from the organisation
• destroyed any form of brand loyalty and employee ambassadorship for the organisation

We can deduce more goofs from this incident but would love to hear from you and your experiences if any.

Very certain someone can learn from them and you may jolly well be saving a person from falling into these traps of sharp employment practices.🙏

Folu' Rotimi

Lead People Strategist & Culture

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