New answers tagged human-resources
2
Firstly, their verbal reasoning is a bit misguided.
They said that because everybody is working from home, my home counts as my office while I'm working.
What they should have said was:
When you are representing the company you must follow company rules.
Smoking while on the job during a visual meeting never-the-less is certainly jarring for the ...
-1
In the US, it would be completely, totally normal and legally acceptable that a company might have a policy:
"You may not smoke while on video calls."
However. It sounds like they have never told you this policy and indeed they probably do not have such a policy.
Your email response should be:
"Hello. Immediately completely remove the reprimand from ...
39
I am rabidly anti-smoking, but I find their argument, as presented, absurd. To say that your office is a smoke-free workplace and since you are now working from home, your home is the office is outrageous.
Offices have non-smoking policies in their buildings to avoid polluting the indoor air in the workplace, and I'm glad they do. Back in the 1980's I ...
3
Instead of smoking, let's suppose you were assembling a Lego puzzle while on video call. Would it be acceptable? It does not matter what you were doing if it was not work related. Eating, drinking, watching TV. They just found a legal reason to go after you in this case. Trust me, they will find legal explanation for issues no matter how small, that do not ...
0
Your employer is in a position to forbid or require you doing one thing or another (within reasonable limits - like to wear an uniform, not to use tobacco, alcohol or drugs, not to swear, to speak only some specified language, etc) in office hours, no matter where exactly you are (you may be on a field trip, and the place may be an actual field).
In my ...
1
HR Forcing to submit documents prior to give offer
This doesn't sound professional or friendly at all. I'd not want to work in a company of people like that.
In the salary discussion I have requested an amount which was on higher side to open negotiation and HR agreed over text message on phone but not in mail.
and
Suddenly I got mails to fill out ...
77
You also
were naked at the office
slept overnight at the office
and possibly
made an overly fragrant lunch at the office
brought your pet to the office
had sex or masturbated at the office
The argument that context doesn't matter is clearly absurd. None of the reasons they presented to you make any sense. (some people in the comments pointed out some ...
3
Another possible aspect might be health and safety at work. I think some of the recent legislation has been to protect employees from the dangers of smoke while working. This applies obviously to table staff in pubs etc but probably applies to any working environment.
In this case, the company is employing you to do work and if you were to become ill due to ...
4
This is a common practice in Indian Software/IT companies. They do request for such documents before releasing an offer.
And since, you have not submitted, they decided to move forward. Nothing surprising here. It was rude of them. We'll come across all kind of recruiters. Generally, if a recruiter is really interested, they would have positively ...
26
Can a company really get me in trouble for this?
Depending on your State and contract yes this could get you in trouble, and they could fire you if the laws apply.
Check your local laws and contract to be sure. I also suggest you check your employee's handbook to see what are the politics about smoking.
Is this actually a thing?
Well... they sent you ...
104
Is this actually a thing? Can a company really get me in trouble for this?
Since you are living and working in the US, yes they can. Chances are, they can fire you for any reason or none at all (depending on your local state laws).
Their "your home is our office" argument is absurd, but being a smoker is not a protected class and doing it on company time, ...
12
I can think of two reasons why they are completely justified in their reprimand:
You receive any amount of "home office" materials/technologies/reimbursement: Yes, your computer you work on, your internet connection, and maybe even the room itself may be "theirs" in a loose sense if you take their money each month as a reimbursement for having your own ...
5
Is this actually a thing? Can a company really get me in trouble for this?
There may not be a right or wrong answer for this. Or maybe this isn't even written in any rulebook. But we are also currently living in an unusual time.
In this situation, I think the best approach would be to own it up and ensure to the HR and everyone else involved to make sure ...
21
I suspect you failed on personality
If the irritation you show in this post even slightly came off during your interview, you got tagged as having a problem personality. If you get this annoyed at a couple random questions, it does not bode well for future interactions.
7
Because there's more to being a good employee than programming skills. They want to know how you interact with other people, how you react when presented with off-the-wall questions, and so on.
If they give you the job, you will most likely be in a project or department team. How you work with them is just as important as what your skills are.
1
Doing what you can to get the best possible offer is what everyone is expected to do. Nothing wrong with that. If they added 55% then you probably convinced them they needed a better and therefore better paid person for the position. So they advertised a £40,000 position but hired you into a £62,000 position.
If not, if you just beat them at negotiating, ...
2
Show, don't tell
While lambshaanxy's answer is a good one, it doesn't apply to all cases. It applies in cases where upper management is open to improvement.
But there are situations where upper management is either oblivious to or doesn't quite care about the workload of the staff (multiple levels down from them). I'm not implying malevolence here, just a ...
1
Does the concept of "planned sick leave" as in time off work planned
in advance for medical reasons exist out there?
Yes it is routine in every company I have worked for or heard off, e.g. you go to the Doctor for an appointment, he refers you to a consultant who examines you and then schedules an operation for a month's time and advises you you will be ...
17
Simple: you explain what will happen and give them a choice.
Boss, with only one resource on the team, Project Foo will take a year to complete. This will block Initiative Bar, so we won't be ready by the end of year, and this is likely to cost us up to $1M in sales.
If I can hire another person, this would cost us $100,000 all in, but we could ...
5
What arguments would you use?
If there is no budget then arguments won't work. The last manager was fired because he/she couldn't handle it, and you're headed down the same path unless you get proactive.
You have two options:-
Escalate the issue to the people who do have a budget.
Job hunt.
Best to do both.
I really want to stay at the company.
This ...
2
To show the absurdity of this: You need a life saving operation within the next 3 months. Your doctor says “let’s do it on the 12th of June, and you’ll be in hospital for a week”. You say “sorry, I can’t have planned sick leave. Just call me the night before”. June 11th you get a call and take a week unplanned sick leave.
Surely your boss would have ...
9
Put it on HR.
"I knew very little about the company when I interviewed. I assumed all the departments speaking to me were coordinating through HR and that I was ultimately selected for the position by the division that needed me most. Is that not what happened?" "No?" "How interesting!"
7
This question is company specific, but I hope this answer isn’t.
Sick leave varies by jurisdiction and company. In some places it will be mandated and defined by law, in other places it will be a term defined by the company.
When defined by a company it can mean anything from “we probably won’t fire you for missing work as long as it isn’t too much work ...
2
Presumably, the company is interested in AI-related skills enough to hire you. Presumably, you know about AI more than anyone else at the company. At the same time, you need another person to bounce your ideas from.
Run a regular AI-related journal club in your company
Pros for you: you get to read relevant articles, you get more people who understand how ...
4
You should read the Mythical Man Month : Essays on Software Engineering book and the Bullshit Jobs: A Theory book. Of course, be aware also of Peter principle (it is a fixed point analysis).
Both are very relevant to your situation.
Brook's book (mythical man-month) demonstrate that communication between human software developers and their management is ...
4
You should absolutely discuss this with your manager. Your manager should have a very good understanding of what you're experiencing right now. That being said, be prepared to be told "We can't do that. It's not in the budget."
These things are often driven by product roadmap and budget. There are a lot of considerations that go into hiring/acquiring more ...
24
The statement of your manager is obviously trivially wrong.
I have had planned sick leave way to many times for my liking. It's easy. You visit a doctor. The doctor makes a frowny face and sends you to a specialized surgeon. The surgeon makes a happy face, looks at their calendar and says "no problem, the procedure can be scheduled as soon as next Tuesday. ...
17
Note: since no location/culture/company policy is provided in the question, no guarantees can be made. However, your interpretation of what constitutes sick leave seems to diverge from the general interpretation, which is what this answer is responding to.
One could take an hour or two off work to go to the doctor and then continue working.
However, ...
10
Other answers have well covered the question of if you should worry, and what to do if the meeting seems to go sideways, but to actually prepare for the meeting:
Ask if they can give you their list of questions/agenda now so that you can try to dig up any documentation you may still have from that time that may be relevant in answering their questions.
...
30
It's perhaps more likely that HR may be trying to find out if your hiring manager did something wrong. Did they get prior budgetary approval before extending your offer? Did they hire you into the vacancy they said they were recruiting for? Did they recruit you fairly and openly? Did they follow company policy (and local laws) for diversity? Did they offer ...
28
From what you described you did nothing wrong. That alone should be reassuring enough. I suggest you keep your calm throughout the conversations, and also ask them to make the purpose of the call very clear from the very beginning. If the whole thing is meant to help the company avoid mistakes that could harm them in the future, that's alright. If it's meant ...
111
If you didn't lie at any stage throughout the hiring process, then you probably have nothing to worry about.
Just remember, though, that HR isn't there to protect your interests. Do not feel compelled to answer any questions that you do not want to.
It's also worth remembering that usually when you are speaking with HR, you are not speaking as an agent of ...
2
How should I prepare myself for this?
It's hard to say really maybe just try to go over what happened write it down incase you are nervous in the interview and forget something.
Should I worry about something?
Generally I would say yes with most meetings with HR but in this case is sounds like they are trying to improve the hiring process. Anyway ...
6
Truthfully, I don't think you should have run away from that meeting - that was where as a director of the company you should have had a backbone and talked the MD down from committing potentially unlawful acts for which, as directors of the company, both you and he could be held responsible.
Also, do not simply hand any shares back. Those are your shares, ...
4
Don't do this anymore...
Now in this time period is not the time to do this. People need jobs during the COVID-2019 situation. Nothing is wrong with applying for multiple jobs and having multiple interviews but your intentions need to be pure.
If your intentions are to practice interviewing, then stop what you are doing. As @Catsunami pointed out, you're ...
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