You have taken my input for a specific case and determined what you think I believe for all cases. My opinion applies specifically to this case, where an employee was notified of a “disciplinary violation” which she was apparently surprised by and does not agree even happened (inferred by the OP being “certain she isn’t guilty of.”).
I’m just full of surprises.
My advice is to go to HR to ask if there is a disciplinary violation on my employee record. If not, then she’s done. If so, then she needs to determine what next steps would be appropriate. This is not a trip to HR to complain about the manager. I would not recommend HR as a first resort for a dispute with a manager, but an accusation of some sort of violation is a bit more than a garden variety dispute.
This not telling people about problems until performance review time was the #2 complaint from employees during focus groups the performance review committee I was on ran. (I’m not in HR, I was on as a manager.) It appears to come from bosses being too chicken to give negative feedback at the time, but not too chicken to put it in writing months later.
Performance review forms I’m familiar with have a space where employees can dispute the results. That would be an excellent thing for her to do here. It means HR would see it (and maybe the bosses boss) without it being an issue.
Thanks everyone for your input. Just to clarify something, when I referred to him as Head Honcho I mean Head Honcho. He owns the place. And there is no HR department, so no one she can even complain to. I wasn’t really looking for recommendations about what she could do about it (apart from quit, which believe me, we’re all thinking of doing). I just wanted to make sure my anger about the whole thing wasn’t unreasonable.
I strongly suspect this is true. They are looking for a reason to justify not paying her what she’s worth.
I believe that only the last five words are necessary or relevant.
HR does not have the power or the will to truly make your life better, unless you outrank the head of HR. HR is there to make problems disappear, and the easiest way to “disappear” a problem like this one is to get rid of the complainer ASAP.
Read your own post. No, your advice was NOT to ask HR a simple question. Your advice was to TELL HR that her boss notified her of a disciplinary violation, ask them if there was a record of it (which is likely to generate a record if there wasn’t one before), ask what action the company intends to take (which is also likely to generate a record if there wasn’t one), then ask was whether a manager talking to her without notifying HR is overstepping his bounds. You actually did recommend a trip to HR as a first resort, in fact you explicitly claimed that she had no options but to go to HR, suck it up, or resign, completely dismissing the rather sensible option of talk to the manager directly. And you did say that that she should complain about the manager - asking what the company intends to do and whether the manager overstepped his boundaries is complaining about the manager, even if it is a passive-aggressive way to do so.
The advice that you gave and I objected to was bad, even without the additional information the OP has provided (that shows it’s not even possible in this specific situation). Your revised advice is not as bad, but pretending like you didn’t write what you did earlier doesn’t make it vanish from the thread.
Completely and utterly wrong. If you have questions about benefits, need a copy of a pay stub or tax form, need to change benefits enrollment, need to check your leave balance, or anything along those lines, HR generally does have the power and will to make your life better, and there’s generally not much other way to get stuff done. It’s a lot easier to fill out an amended W4 or add a dependent to insurance than to fire one person, then hire someone new, the idea that you’ll get fired for talking to HR about benefits administration is nuts. (This falls into the not “confrontation with a manager” category, hence that part of the disclaimer) If you are being sexually harassed or discriminated against, just any lawsuit or complaint that you file against the company will fall flat if you didn’t officially notify the company (either directly to HR or through someone who goes to HR) because the company will just claim to be ignorant of whatever the issue was. They may fire you, but since firing the complainer actually boosts the chance of a lawsuit it’s very often not their first choice. And I’d say that being fired with good grounds for a lawsuit is generally much better than quitting and destroying any chance at a lawsuit, or tolerating harassment indefinitely. (This falls into the ‘doing something illegal’ category, hence that part).
