I’m an HR business partner in a large manufacturing business. I’m friendly with a manager in the department where I spend most of my time. But I also know there’s a large reorganisation coming, which has been planned for months and could be implemented at any point. It will take out a large chunk of management. My friend is always talking about the house she’s going to buy with her partner any week now. She’s good at her job but it’s her level that’s going to be under threat and there’s a decent chance she could end up with no job. I have tried to suggest now isn’t a good time to buy your first home, but I’ll end up losing my own job if I’m caught leaking such big news. What can I do to warn her?
Welcome to the tricky world of HR and personal relationships. It’s inevitable that you are going to find out privileged information, and that it could affect people you know. That is, I’m afraid, part and parcel of the job. I certainly don’t subscribe to the view that HR professionals shouldn’t make friends outside HR – that just doesn’t work in practice. This isn’t a problem unique to HR. Managers often find themselves taking tough decisions about people they know and care about. Part of the reason for making HR part of such calls is to increase the organisation’s objectivity, and to share the burden.
Potentially losing your job if you spill the beans is only part of the problem. If you’re a listed company and the restructure could affect the share price, saying anything could have serious consequences. Even if you’re not, failing to keep secrets like this will erode confidence in you and the HR function. I’ve worked in large businesses that often made acquisitions, and keeping the news (and the implications) quiet meant taking on exactly these burdens. Unfortunately, there’s no way to avoid that.
The only possible way out would be to ask if parts of the business could have news of the restructure released before others. But this could negatively affect far more people than your friend. I advise you just to hope for the best: she may not lose her job, and the economy overall isn’t so terrible that she wouldn’t find another. Let’s hope, too, that she understands the difficult situation you were put in keeping the information quiet.
Flexible hours are harming morale
We’ve had a flexible working policy for 18 months and it’s mostly gone well. But it’s causing some problems in my team. We often end up putting in extra hours, which is seen as part of the job. But two people leave at a strict time each day for childcare reasons; others end up staying beyond their contracted hours. One has approached me to say she feels she’s being penalised for not having children, and I can see her point. But there’s no budget to bring in extra staff, and I can’t see how to make the situation fairer without our work suffering – in our world (we’re an architecture consultancy), that’s just how it is.
I’m a little disappointed you can't see this employee’s point. The case for flexible working is pretty well established – it makes for a more diverse workforce, helps you better reflect your customer base and improves the bottom line. And while this employee may choose never to have children, she might value flexibility at some point in her career; for example, if she ever has to care for an elderly parent.
Presumably you granted these flexible working requests because you believed you could accommodate them operationally, and it’s worth going back to the plans you made at the time to see if they are being carried out properly, as well as looking at why people are working such long hours. It can’t just be because some work flexibly – you may need more staff, or better ways of working.
If this arrangement really isn’t working out, you can revisit the business case. Or you could ask the employees if they could sometimes work late, between them, with reasonable notice. People assume flexible workers can never accommodate such requests, or can’t be asked, but you’d be surprised how helpful people can be if they understand the reasons. What you can’t do is say they have to change their hours without good cause. But I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be the type of manager who does that.