Another update from the Jungle….
Once upon a time in a town not so far away, there lived a nice woman named Alanis. She liked her job and was always willing to learn from more experienced co-workers. Her boss loved her too and wrote embarrassingly glowing performance reviews.
But fairy tales aren’t the only places with evil beings. A wicked witch named Wanda also works in the office. Wanda’s not qualified to do the job Alanis was hired for but that doesn’t stop her from trying to take over. Wanda smiles in Alanis’ face even as she secretly sharpens her talons.
Wanda’s opportunity soon arrives. At a staff meeting, their boss, Julia, announces that the company is rolling out a new service and asks Alanis to take the lead for their department. Wanda’s death-ray glare bores into Alanis’ skull across the conference room table. After the meeting, Wanda loudly announces in the break room that the new project is doomed because Alanis is 
incompetent.
A week later, Alanis’ project notes mysteriously disappear from the system’s shared drive. Fortunately, she a printed copy first and is able to recreate her notes. She saves a copy of the new version on a thumb drive. Sure enough, the shared drive version disappears again.
At the next staff meeting, Julia asks why Alanis she doesn’t share information with the rest of the group. Alanis reports the mysterious deletions and asks that IT investigate the deletions. Julia looks at Wanda and then abruptly ends the meeting.
The next day, Julia calls Alanis to her office. Waiting in Julia’s office is Wanda. Julia says that she’s decided to appoint Wanda as co-chair of the project because it’s obviously too much for Alanis to do alone. Wanda smirks as she demands copies of all Alanis’ notes.
After that, Wanda changes the entire strategy so that their department misses deadlines set by Julia’s bosses. Wanda blames Alanis and complains about a lack of cooperation. Alanis is again called to Julia’s office where she is criticized for disloyalty and undermining the department. Julia says Alanis can resign or be fired.
What should Alanis do next?
- She can continue to protest her innocence knowing she won’t win since a weak manager is as dangerous as a witch.
- She can booby trap Wanda’s desk with eau de skunk.
- She can resign and consult a lawyer about suing for constructive termination.
In the actual situation, the targeted employee resigned. Any office can develop an infestation of wicked witches if management is weak. Fumigate your workplace with effective HR policies. 
If your company is struggling with HR issues, Corporate Compliance Risk Advisor can help you create HR policies that are appropriate for your company’s size and then serve as a resource to your staff as the policies are implemented.
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assigned to work with the HR department because the other lawyers don’t want to. She inherits a file cabinet full of pending EEOC discrimination claims. Another giant file cabinet contains investigation notes of employee theft cases. Apparently anything not too big or nailed down tight is carried off by employees. 
Corrie is bored with her job. It hasn’t challenged her skills in years or put her in line for a promotion. She’s tried to find other jobs but the truth is that she’s unlikely to get a big enough salary increase to offset the loss of her current benefits package.
To pass the time and alleviate her boredom, she creates imaginary scenarios for her job. When her boss gives her a new assignment, she pretends its part of a great military plan, like Operation Overlord. She imagines herself working in a small office in London, helping plan the D-Day invasion.
When she takes a business trip, she pretends she’s an agent dropped into occupied France to support the French Resistance. As she drives, she thinks of the highway patrol as roving bands of collaborators looking for Resistance workers they can arrest and interrogate. When she checks in to a hotel, she scouts the lobby for exits in case she needs to beat a quick retreat from a Gestapo raid.
But Corrie stopped caring after the management team downsized the workforce. She’s survived several staff reductions since the first big cull of the herd by keeping her head down and her opinions to herself. She no longer volunteers for special projects but her past volunteerism means her boss considers her a “team player” and Corrie thinks that’s helped her keep her job.
Mae owns several coffee shops and has plans to add several more locations over the next year or two. She paid her way through college working in chain coffee shops. After graduation, she decided to stay in the city where she went to college rather than returning to her po-dunk hometown.
Andrea is a lawyer in the corporate legal department of a major company. She’s never quite fit in with the rest of the department and tends to work alone rather than as part of a team. She gets the assignments the other lawyers don’t want.
But wine and chocolate can’t solve every problem. Andrea’s morale continues to disintegrate and she becomes deeply depressed. She begins seeing a psychologist for mental health counseling. The counseling sessions help her with personal problems even as her work situation deteriorates.
The above scenario is loosely based on a California lawsuit about ten years ago where the company argued unsuccessfully that paying health insurance premiums meant it had a right to know the details of an employee’s mental health treatment. Unfortunately, arguments like the one raised by the California case make it difficult to convince employees to seek mental health treatment from an EAP or their health insurance plan.
Grace is an assistant manager for her company. She’s always looking for opportunities to improve her performance so that she can get promoted. She hears that Diane believes in mentoring young talent and asks for a transfer to Diane’s department.
She decides to not bail out herself because she believes she is in line for a promotion that is opening soon. The company has a policy that requires an employee to be in a position for at least a year before being eligible for promotion.
Jim and Tony run a venture capital fund that specializes in distressed assets. They buy companies, replace the management team, cut most of the employees to generate savings and make the company look profitable (on paper). Then they sell the company.
After studying the company’s bottom line, Jim and Tony decide that the first employees to go are Linda and Larry. They tell Sandra, the HR rep, to prepare the paperwork. She cautions against firing two of the most respected workers. Jim looks at the org chart again and concludes they are peons.
Within weeks, a third of the workforce resigns following Linda and Larry out the door. Jim and Tony are initially relieved; they only had to fire two workers. But the remaining workforce is demoralized. Within six months, the company has lost several key clients and the bottom line is tanking. Jim and Tony call a meeting with Sandra to discuss staffing levels and the status of Linda’s and Larry’s lawsuit.
Another update from the Jungle…
Drew was happy to delegate employee issues to Tina. But Tina didn’t know anything about employment laws or human resources best practices. She Googled key terms periodically and filled out paperwork to the best of her ability. The company’s CPA was able to answer her questions related to payroll processing, but basically Tina was on her own.
HR Compliance Jungle 