Mrs. 1SBM just got some bad news ... [View all]

[1StrongBlackMan]

Two years ago, she took an Employee Relations position with a local employee. It's HR department was a mess and no one in the company trusted HR. After two years of hard work, the department had policies and procedures in place and the employee atmosphere had markedly improved. She was recognized with increasing responsibility and a promotion to Director of Employee Relations.

The departing VP of HR decided that the department could build on this success by re-organizing ... the department (actually, from my professional perspective, the whole organization) was/is top heavy, with too manager "Directorships" that functioned more as "Managers." Additionally, and again, from my professional perspective, the company was a study in the "Peterson Principle" and unplanned growth ... over a number of years, upper management increased HR programming and just handed them off to Directors, without much consideration of competencies (or organizational output). As a result, low performing managers with little expertise were given more responsibility and elevated to Directorships. To address this, they called in a consulting team.

Well ... the report is back (though it has not been formally released) ... and the consultants did recommend down-grades and position elimination. Of the 5 directorships (Employee Relations, Policy Development, Professional Development, HR Systems, Director of EEO, and a Director tasked to "special projects" (read: you screwed up, but don't want to fire you), they recommended that one be down-graded (Director of Employee Relations) and one be eliminated (Director of Special Projects).

Despite everyone telling her how "valued" she is, and how much the "appreciate" her hard work, Mrs. 1SBM position is to be down-graded to a Program Manager position and will, likely, be reporting to the Director of Professional Development, who previously reported to her. At any rate, whomever she will report to knows nothing about Employee Relations.

Now, guess the demographics of the two Directors that were negatively affected by the re-organization ... that's right, the only two PoC in the HR department.

She is so hurt ... and I have no words.