Hello! HR Generalist here. Quick context before I explain, is that I am the only HR person on site at our small facility, but we work for a very large corporate company with many people above us. I support the director of our facility for our specific site, but officially report to an HR Manager at corporate.

Long story short, we had an employee (let’s call him Jared for convenience) who has run out of his FMLA for the year. He would historically use it to take off Mondays and Fridays, and since he has ran out, he told us that he still does not plan on coming in Mondays and Fridays, and would just let the attendance system that we have in place terminate him. We explained that he was more than welcome to go to part-time, which would unfortunately take away a few benefits only offered to full-time employees, but he would be allowed to take off Mondays and Fridays going to part time.

Ultimately, Jared decided that he would only go to part-time if we allow him to keep full-time benefits, give him a raise, let him be exempt from the attendance policy, and essentially let him do whatever he wants. He would also be able to come and go as he pleases, decide when he wants to work and when he doesn’t, and have unlimited vacation time. And even then, he said he’s only willing to stay until the end of the year, and then retire in January 2027. I think it is incredibly clear that that is absolutely not sustainable, fair, or even possible from an HR standpoint. When discussing this with our director (let’s call her Sarah for convenience), she AGREED that he was asking for the impossible and that we were not able to meet all of his demands.

Fast-forward to today, Sarah and I had to give a last chance agreement/written warning to Jared, in which he once again refused going part-time unless we met his demands. However, before I could say anything else, Sarah essentially said “you know what? I changed my mind. We will give you whatever you want. Anna, I need you and your manager to find a way to make this happen.” Mind you she said this to the employee without talking to me about it AT ALL. She completely undermined me, blindsided me, and essentially changed a literal HR policy without involving me at ALL, and just told me to figure it out.

After Jared left my office, Sarah told me that it would be very hard to replace him and that we can just allow him to stay until the end of the year, and he can do what he wants as long as he stays. For context, he works in a very niche role that will be hard to fill, so I do understand the business perspective of not wanting to lose him. However, when I tried to explain to her that that is absolutely not ethical or sustainable, she told me she doesn’t care and we need him for the business. She then looked me dead in the eyes and said, “I know your opinion about this, Anna. And I honestly, truly do not care. I just truly don’t give a fuck anymore.” She then told me that I need to hop on a call with my manager immediately and discuss how we make this happen. Not if we could, but how we do it.

I have a call with my manager, Sarah, and her manager tomorrow about this, but I am completely frustrated that I was undermined, and told from our sites top senior leadership that she does not give a fuck about my opinion. I wasn’t trying to give my opinion. I was trying to give my HR perspective and remind her of our policies…

I guess I’m just looking for some advice on how I can approach our meeting tomorrow, and if I’m even being correct about being frustrated by this. I’m not looking to be “right” here, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to do my job as HR if every time I try to uphold a policy, I’m essentially being told to shut the fuck up by the people who created it in the first place.

TLDR; Employee asked for impossible demands. Facility Director told them that we will give them whatever they want and then told me she doesn’t care about my opinion and I need to find a way to make this happen. Frustrated and not sure what my next step should be.

I’m looking for some outside perspectives because I’m honestly pretty shaken up by what’s happened at work recently, and I’m worried I’m about to lose my job. 😭😭

For background, I’m in HRIS and I am salaried, exempt. I’ve been with my current employer for a couple years and transferred into my current position about a year and a half ago.

Recently, I approached my manager about a salary adjustment. When I transferred into my current role, it was considered a lateral move, and my compensation wasn’t reevaluated despite my previous HRIS experience.

I also became aware that we rehired someone into the same position with significantly less HR/HRIS experience was making considerably more than me (the person I trained, who ended up leaving for a couple months and coming back)

Rather than focus on my coworker’s compensation, I put together a justification based on my own experience, contributions, and accomplishments to justify an adjustment to the midpoint of my salary band as my current salary is below the midpoint for my position. Ultimately, my manager denied the request giving a vague statement I still had a lot to learn, but I was doing a great job and told me to send her a list of what I’ve accomplished if I genuinely feel like my compensation should be re-evaluated. So I did just that and sent the justification about 5 days after that conversation.

Fast-forward to today, I unexpectedly received a meeting invitation from someone in our internal audit/employee concerns program. During the meeting, the investigator informed me that someone had submitted a complaint alleging that my recorded working hours did not align with my computer/online activity. The timeframe being reviewed covers approximately seven and a half weeks, ending just last week. He said the complainant’s identity wasn’t disclosed to him.

He asked about my daily responsibilities, what my typical workday looks like, whether I could explain extended periods away from my desk, and whether I knew why someone might submit this type of complaint. I told the investigator I do have to step away each workday to drop my son off at daycare in the morning, but I come right back. I also said he gets sick often from being in daycare so he’ll be home with me and I’ll have to step away to care for him, He didn’t present specific dates or instances of discrepancies, and he didn’t tell me whether the investigation had already identified any. For context, I work remotely, but not everything I do necessarily involves continuous mouse or keyboard activity.

After the meeting, I approached my manager and told her what happened. I explained that if she ever had concerns about my productivity or work activity, I wanted her to feel comfortable discussing them directly with me.

She told me she hadn’t filed the complaint, knew nothing about the investigation, and suggested it might be a random audit.

However, there have been some recent changes in her behavior that are making me uncomfortable.

For example, she’s suddenly started asking me to show other team members how I perform certain aspects of my job. This wasn’t something she had previously emphasized.

Combined with the recent compensation discussion, the unexpected investigation, and what feels like a change in her demeanor, I’m worried that she’s preparing to terminate me and transfer my responsibilities to someone else.

To be clear, I have absolutely no proof that my manager filed the complaint, that the investigation is related to my compensation request, or that there’s a plan to terminate me. I’m just having a difficult time not connecting these events.

* Has anyone experienced something similar and remained employed afterward?

I’d appreciate objective perspectives, even if they’re not necessarily what I want to hear.

We're looking at a rough health insurance renewal on our fully-insured health plan this year (as most of us are, I'm sure) and our benefits broker has suggested a level-funded plan combined with using the Samaritan Fund Program to laser out the high-cost claimants and get them on marketplace plans with additional coverage from "charities and such". We're charged a flat fee for each person, but it's lower than our max out-of-pocket before stop-loss kicks in. Supposedly this is a benefit to both the employers (since it removes high-cost claimants from our immediate costs and claims experience completely) and employees (since they have lower premiums and out-of-pocket costs than a traditional insurance plan, considering their difficult situation with an ongoing high-cost medical condition).

Anyway, my BS radar is pinging like crazy, if for no other reason than it's yet another parasitic rent-seeking middleman getting added to the health insurance market (a market already crowded with parasitic rent-seeking middlemen) claiming to lower costs for everyone, which is simply unlikely due to the laws of thermodynamics (making a system more complex rarely makes it more efficient). I know there are also compliance concerns here with non-discrimination testing, the fact that it's not ACA-compliant (RIP to the ACA, anyway...), the fact that we're no longer covering these individuals on our actual health insurance, the fact that it's not technically illegal but it isn't totally clear whether it's explicitly legal... basically, it sounds way too new, untested, and too good to be true so I have to assume it is indeed too good to be true. I (and my company) am/are pretty risk-averse so I am planning to advise against it to the board, but before I do that, has anyone here actually used it who could share their experience?

Their online presence is pretty slim; finding reviews is currently difficult and made harder by the fact that there is one of those faith-based bill-sharing services with a very similar name which tends to pop up on google.

Went into our one way video interview tool this week and most of the videos our warehouse applicants recorded in August have never been opened. We’re in Ohio, so second and third shift associates are a permanent open req for us. Someone bought the tool before I took over HR. Applicants get a link, answer six questions on camera, and the shift supervisors are supposed to watch and decide who comes in. They’re not lazy, they’re covering shifts and nobody has time to sit through recordings. So applicants hear nothing for weeks, and by the time anyone calls they’ve taken a job somewhere else.

A lot of them also apply from their phones between shifts, and more than one told me they gave up on the video because they hated seeing themselves on camera. Renewal is in January and I want to cancel, but it’s two of us in HR and we can’t phone screen everyone either. If you hire warehouse associates at volume, what replaced one way video for you? How did you get the people making the decision to look at screening results at all? And if you moved to an automated voice instead of a camera, did it go better, or did it feel like the same thing to applicants?

For those who do recons and funding for HSAs, how soon after the pay date do you have the employee contributions in their HSA accounts? Does anyone have the contributions depostied before the payroll date? Is there a general IRS rule for the timeframe on the deposits?