Dear Liz,

I'm the HR Manager for a small, fast-growing software firm. We have 105 employees, and 27 job openings. I love my job, but I'm swamped. I am extremely busy between recruiting, employee relations, training, comp and benefits and all the HR issues that go along with a fast-growing firm. I have an HR Assistant and a contract recruiter helping me.

A year ago our front desk receptionist "Naomi" left the company. Naomi reported to the CEO's assistant, "Marcia." The reason Naomi reported to Marcia (who doesn't supervise any other employees) is because in our previous location, the front lobby was located just outside the CEO's office, and our CEO "Kirk" asked his administrator Marcia to supervise the front desk receptionist. Naomi started as a temp, and then she came on board full-time, reporting to Marcia.

When Naomi left, the question came up again: who should the front desk receptionist report to? Marcia wanted Naomi's replacement to report to her, but I suggested that Naomi's replacement should report to me in HR because Marcia didn't supervise Naomi in any way. Naomi always complained to me that she had nothing to do. Meanwhile, I am drowning in work. The front desk receptionist could help us in HR, rather than sitting idle all day.


Marcia never made any attempt that I could see to supervise Naomi, coach her, sit down with her or talk with her about her work. So, when Naomi left I brought up the issue that maybe Naomi's replacement should report to me or someone else. Marcia shut that down. She knew that Kirk would support her, just because she is his assistant and he wouldn't want to tick her off.

We have supervisor meetings once a month, but Marcia doesn't come to those. She says they're "boring." She says she's too busy. Every other supervisor comes to the meetings.

Marcia interviewed candidates for Naomi's replacement. She chose "Anita" for the job. Anita is not a great employee, but she has made friends here. She's a very friendly person. Our vendors who come to our facility every week or two love Anita. When there are no visitors in the lobby, Anita reads a magazine or goes on Facebook.

I've asked Marcia whether Anita could help us with HR work (scheduling interviews, for instance) and she says, "No, I have plenty of work to keep Anita busy," but she literally doesn't give Anita anything to do.

Sometimes there are no visitors in the lobby for an entire day, and Anita has nothing to do.

One day Anita told me, "I'm going to start a lifestyle blog, to keep myself busy." I don't know whether she ever started her blog or not, but I get a lot of complaints from other departments because Anita sits at the front desk and paints her nails, talks to her friends on the phone and reads magazines.

Anita went on maternity leave in November. I got a temp, "Vivienne," to handle the reception desk while Anita was gone. Vivienne did an amazing job. Three different department managers wanted to hire her full-time, even though the temp agency charges a hefty fee to clients like us who hire their temps on as full-time employees. Anita was supposed to come back to work on in February.

A week before she was due to return, Anita called me (not Marcia) and told me that she needed another month off.

Vivienne was supposed to move into Sales when Anita came back to work, so that move was delayed for a month. Anita came back to work in March and Vivienne started her new position as an inside salesperson.

One week after she started working again, Anita came to see me. She said her daycare wasn't working out and she needed to make a change. She had found a better daycare facility for her son, but it's located close to her home and far from our office. She said she needed to change her working hours so she could get to the daycare center to pick up her son before the center closed for the evening at six p.m. She said she needed to change her working hours to be able to leave a four p.m. every day.

I said, "Anita, I would like to accommodate you if possible but it's not that easy to find someone who will staff a front desk reception job for one hour, five days a week."

She said, "What about Vivienne? I'm sure Sales can spare her for one hour a day." I said, "Vivienne is in a completely different function now. It's not fair to her to ask her to switch from Inside Sales to reception, one hour per day for the foreseeable future."

Anita said, "Well, I have to do what's right for my baby. I'm going to be working from eight-thirty to four p.m. starting in two weeks, so we need to find a solution." She was very demanding. She dumped the problem on my desk and walked out of my office.

I met with Marcia the next day. Marcia said, "It's your problem to solve, Jane." She didn't want to lift a finger to solve the problem even though she is responsible for the reception function -- because she insisted on it!

I sent an email to all of our managers asking for ideas. They all said, "I don't have any employee I can spare for an hour a day, every day."

I called the temp agency. They didn't have any temps who wanted to work for one hour a day, understandably.

I told Marcia that I've done everything I can and that if she wants to keep Anita on board, she needs to find a solution or at least partner with me to find a resolution. She continues to say, "You're in charge of staffing, Jane -- not me."

I'm not sure what to do. If our lobby is unstaffed for the last hour of the day starting in two weeks, I'm the one who's going to get flak about it -- not Marcia. I don't think I'll be able to find anyone who wants to work for one hour a day. I don't like the fact that an employee can say "I'm changing my hours -- deal with it" and somehow that's my problem.

By now, everybody has heard about the issue with Anita. It's the biggest topic in our office. About seventy percent of the team wants to get rid of Anita and find somebody new to staff the front reception desk. They say it's not fair that Anita gets to leave an hour early and nobody else gets to set their own hours.

About thirty percent of our team wants me to find another solution so Anita can stay here. They say, "How can we call ourselves a family friendly workplace if we won't accommodate a new mom?"

What should I do?

Thanks,

Jane

Dear Jane,

There are two issues to address. One is cultural. The other is practical.

As a practical matter, you are unlikely to find anyone willing to work the reception desk for one hour per day. However, you will probably not have any trouble finding someone to work for four hours per day. Hire a part-time person to cover reception in the afternoons, and let Anita staff the reception desk in the mornings.


Let Anita know that if she wants to remain as a half-time employee, you can accommodate that request and schedule her to work every morning. That way, she won't have any trouble picking up her son from the daycare center at five p.m.

If Marcia wants to give Anita more than twenty hours of work per week (although it sounds like it would be hard for Marcia to make the argument that she has more than twenty hours per week of work for Anita) she can certainly do that, but of course doing so will cost your company money for no clear business benefit.

That will handle the practical issue. The cultural issue is tougher. You and Marcia have not been communicating effectively. The hardest and most important part of any HR leadership job is to stay out of the political fray. As HR Manager you are your company's Minister of Culture, and right now your squabbles with Marcia are keeping you from performing that critical role.

What is keeping you from telling Marcia exactly what you told me? What is keeping you from suggesting to Marcia that since she finds supervisor meetings boring and doesn't want to coach or mentor Anita, and also doesn't want to deal with staffing the function that she fought so hard to keep, perhaps you and she should jointly approach Kirk and let him weigh in on the issue? If Marcia should not be supervising Anita (or anyone else) it is your job to point that out. It sounds like you are afraid to involve Kirk.

That's understandable, but as the company's HR Manager your number one priority is to speak your truth even when (or especially when) it is hard to do so.

If you don't feel that you can deal forthrightly with political, jurisdictional or operational issues at work because you are afraid of what might happen when you do, you need to rethink your career direction. Being an HR leader means stepping through fear every day. No HR Manager can be effective at their job without feeling the catch in their throat and speaking up anyway.

Everybody who's ever had to take on a thorny interpersonal issue at work can sympathize with you -- and almost everybody has been there -- but everybody who's ever done it also knows that there is no workaround. You simply have to face the fear and step through it. When you do, your muscles grow immediately.

Anita showed up with this prickly issue to teach you something you need to know. Are you ready to work through this lesson? I believe you are!

All the best,

Liz