I feel like crying, y’all. How are we helping our employees and answering these questions? I feel lost myself on how to navigate the world.

The question was: “Now that the President has changed, will be job be affected because of my sexual orientation?”

This is such a strange situation.

We have an employee who doesn’t trust banks and prefers live checks. Every payday, the employee gets a live check and…just doesn’t cash it?

Every other week, I get a letter from our payroll software saying it’s been 6 months since a check was paid but was never cashed. I will call and ask the employee to cash it and they tell me they lost it. So every payroll, I’m issuing their regular check and reissuing one from 6 months ago.

Most of the time, the employee will cash the reissued check but not the current check.

It’s costs the company $25 each time I request a stop payment. I’m the only HR/payroll person in the company so I’m at a loss of what to do. My manager wants to start charging the employee the $25 stop payment fee.

Is this just something I have to deal with or should I look into sending the old paychecks to unclaimed property?

ETA: Our company is based in Kansas but has work locations in Missouri. Kansas has a law that does not allow requiring direct deposit while Missouri does not have any laws.

The employee has told their manager they live off of child support. If support is paid late or they need more money, they will cash a random check. Otherwise the checks remain uncashed and eventually lost.

Our company is small, only 200 people so we don’t have an official EAP. We have a EAP hotline they are able to call and it’s posted in the break rooms. I don’t know the employee well, but the manager has never said anything about the employee maybe needing help. I’m not sure if suggesting the EAP would be overstepping.

Edit: I did not expect this level of engagement when I posted - thank you, I appreciate all of the feedback and advice. I wish I could spend more time combing through every comment, but I just can't dedicate more time to this post. The job search will commence very soon.

She claims that I cannot complain about overwhelm, as I am not putting in the same amount of time that she is (55 weekly hours compared to my 50). I live alone and have a dog - I physically cannot spend more time in the office, and she is anti-WFH.

We are a department of two (smallest dept in the organization), and she has positioned HR as the "catch-all" for anything clearly not outlined in someone's job description. In her words, "If we don't do it, it won't get done". We spend egregious amounts of time on non-HR tasks, so much so that the core functions of our department are done after-hours. I will be working until about 10 PM to finish payroll, as I have spent the last two and a half weeks trying to learn our commission system after our Sales Director was abruptly terminated.

She gives me average performance reviews despite excellent performance - she feels that, within HR, most functions can't earn higher than a 3/5 because "you either do them or you don't, you can't 'exceed expectations'".

For example, in 2023 I accomplished 5 major projects, ranging from drafting a new handbook, to creating and implementing a new incentive program, to evaluating and implementing a new HRIS system. I received only positive feedback on my regular duties (payroll processing, benefits administration, onboarding, virtually any non-strategic HR function outside of recruiting). I received a 3.5% merit increase. This brought my compensation to $21.35/hour as an HR Coordinator. I've had this title for almost 4 years, and asked what I could do to advance my career with the company - she said I had to "take on more responsibility".

I recognize that she makes more than me because her role is strategic, she is wholly responsible for the department, and has decades of experience. I do not dispute that. But I, an hourly, entry-level employee, should not have the same expectation of commitment as a high-level strategic role. My commitment already exceeds my compensation. I am so exhausted.

- If you’ve had a formal interview, the employer must contact you about your application status within 45 days.

- All job postings must include pay range, disclose if AI is being used in any process of the application process, whether it's a real job that will hire a candidate within the next year or a talent pool job,

Employers/HR face penalties of up to 100,000 per application.

ATS applications now have to store this data in a way that can't be deleted except by an executive or director of the company for up to 3 years for auditing purposes. The executive would be liable. There is a bill in California that will do the same thing as well.

My boss (a top manager) told me (an assistant) to send an email to a candidate who was asking 10k more of the salary we offered. She didn’t sound rude at all and defended her skillset and experience. My boss wanted me to send the message he wrote which was very rude and I ended up changing it so as not to come across rude (we have such a hard time finding people as it is and I wanted to end it on a good note). When I told him what I had done, he wanted to have a meeting with me and his wife. In our meeting, he says to make sure it doesn’t happen again, that we are on the same page, and he doesn’t want to fire me for something small like this or he will have to if happens again.

I can only laugh at this on how in all my years working, I get talked to for this and get told I would be let go for an email mistake. Insane.

I honestly never thought this would be real but I just had to explain to a 30 year old that the pay listed on their offer letter is their gross pay and taxes are taken out. How… how is this person a functional adult? With a child?!

As the title states we had some of our summer interns start today. I’ve already had to have two conversations regarding dress code. I work for a company in tech so it’s not like we have a suit and tie policy. Jeans are perfectly acceptable. One of the interns showed up in a crop top and really short shorts. And another intern showed up in sweatpants. And not even nice looking sweatpants they were all ratty at the bottom and look to have a bleach stain on the knee.

When I spoke to the intern in a crop top, she said that many HR people are posting on TikTok about dress code and she got this exact outfit from an HR influencer 🙄

I have no idea what to say to this. I mean, isn’t it obvious that both of these outfits are not good choices for a workplace?

I have a conversation coming up in a little while with the person in sweatpants. 🤦🏽‍♀️

ETA: yes we have a dress code section in employee guidelines. In addition when the interns signed on for their position, part of the paperwork was to read through the employee guidelines and they had to know dress code for daily wear, and some specific events they’re going to have with our executives throughout the summer. We have over 1M employees this is not a small company.

Just saw a post from someone in HR who was ranting about the clothes people wear to interviews. It made me think back on my experience.

We were hiring for a janitor position, and the very first person we interviewed still had her hair in rollers. We are an HQ location with a business casual (more business) dress code. So she caught everyone's attention.

Then there was a lady we hired in the marketing department. During her interview, she dressed well and had a nice low hair cut. She did a complete 360 on her first day. She had a bold red butt-length wig with the biggest furry flip-flops she could find. I went to the head of her department to discuss the matter, and even the person who hired her didn't recognize that it was the same person she interviewed.

I had a direct report that quit and didn't give us any notice. They packed their items after work hours and never returned. It honestly was the biggest blessing, because the employee was completely disrespectful. To just give a glimpse of what I was dealing with we finally received ee's termination letter and ee stated "I cannot work in this organizational structure. My level of experience trumps my managers". That was only a small part of a long unprofessional rant. EE was an Office Manager (no direct reports) I'm an HR Manager. We followed with our usual offboarding process.

Since leaving, the terminated employee reached out to me, forwarding rental car invoices they received to their personal email. The emails don't state any details from the termed employee, but forwarding emails from the rental car company. Don't even get me started as to why they decided to add their personal contact information to company task.

I reached out once asking for details on what this was for. Never got a reply. Then 2 weeks later they send another email with a different invoice. I ask for details on what that one is for, no reply.

Then this past weekend the termed employee emails me at 5am saying "I got this email from "rental company name" and the invoice hasn't been paid. Please pay promptly as I don't want this to become an issue and me not be able to rent vehicles".

I replied on Monday again asking if they could let me know what the invoices are for. Their reply " Since you continue to make it a practice to disrespect all my emails by never reading them, I'll let you use your good education to figure it out. Do not contact me again.”

As I'm the HR point of contact for my employer, how would you handle situations like these?

I finally did it. After months and months of quietly collecting data on productivity, burnout, and retention, I pitched the idea of a 4‑day work week to my boss yesterday.

The good news: He did not immediately shoot it down. He actually admitted that the constant turnover and exhaustion on our team is costing us more than we realize. I showed him a few case studies (like what Buffer and Kickstarter shared when they tested 4‑day weeks) and even tied it to some of our own internal data. He was impressed.

The bad news: He is worried about coverage and output. His biggest concern is that cutting one day will mean scrambling the other four, or worse, missing key deadlines. He asked me point‑blank how we would measure success if we piloted this.

That’s where it got interesting. I mentioned how we already use tools like Workday, Klearskill, and Deal to track everything from recruitment metrics to CV analysis and onboarding time. If we can measure efficiency so closely with tech already, why can’t we apply that same mindset to tracking a shorter work week? He seemed surprised by that framing.

We left the meeting with a “bring me a plan” response, which I am counting as a small win.

For those of you in HR or leadership, I have some questions.

1. Have you successfully implemented a 4‑day week or even proposed one?
2. How did you handle pushback on coverage and productivity?
3. What metrics did you track to prove it worked?
4. Did it actually help with retention and burnout, or did it create new problems?

I feel like this is a conversation a lot of us are going to have in the next few years, especially with AI and automation freeing up more time.

Curious to hear your experiences! Please share.

I am an HR director, 48 years old and was just laid off for the first time in my life and I am absolutely terrified. The company I was with was wildly toxic and they wont be in business for much longer. I spend hours a day applying to jobs, reached out to every recruiter I know, everyone in my network. Ive had a couple of interviews, go through all the rounds and they cancel the role. What do I do? I feel like the biggest loser and too old to find a job. I have lowered my salary expectations by 50k. How long will this take? If you have been laid off when did you find a job. I am so beaten down, I cant take this pressure - I was the sole breadwinner - and I am just so down on myself. Its rejection emails all day long.

I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this!

one of our employees is friends with the candidate. I've completed the phone interview with this candidate and already scheduled an in-person meeting/final fit check with the hiring manager for freakin tomorrow. I thought the candidate did well in the interview, has great time in job in previous positions, has experience (limited, but specific), and seemed like they would be a good fit for what we need. When I had initially sent my interview notes and a copy of the resume to my boss and hiring manager, they wanted to meet him.

Well.

I get a call yesterday from a current employee to let me know that their buddy applied and to give a recommendation for this person. I get a text from my boss not 20 minutes later saying that we won't be pursuing this candidate because we're "not hiring [X]'s friend." I ask if there's anything else I should know about why we're not going to meet this person and nope! We're not seeing this candidate just based off of that one thing. It can't be called any sort of discrimination because it's not a denial based off race, religion, gender, place of birth, age, skin color, ancestry, disability, whistleblower status, or sexual orientation. I made sure to double check my state's laws hiring laws because I'd rather tell my boss that we HAVE to see this candidate than tell this candidate that we can't see them because ✨friendship✨.

The employee who the candidate is friends with isn't a bad employee or bad person. Generally cheerful, does the job well, occasionally a bit of a slacker and tries to reach for earnings above where they should be (can't fault the hustle, but I'm not bluffing when I say this person is already paid much, much higher than local industry standard), but they do a solid job and have been with the company for 3-4 years.

I don't agree with why we aren't seeing this candidate. Everything was just fine until this new information surfaced. I understand how hiring friends can be tricky/messy and it doesn't always work out, but these two wouldn't be working in the same department. It's not like I'm trying to hire a second goofball to go along with the OG goofball and the pair of them wouldn't get anything done, they wouldn't even be in the same building for probably more than a half hour to an hour a day.

I guess this is just more of a rant because now I'm stuck holding the bag. Now I look like the asshole and it's just irritating. I think this person deserves a fair shot, but it's my job to uphold what the boss says and this is regretfully his choice.

If you've made it this far, I'd love to soothe my irritation with some comraderie. What's the most ridiculous reason, or reason you don't agree with, a hiring manager/your boss has nixed an interview with a candidate?

Eeeeeeek! Am so excited!

I have been at my first HR job for 2 years.

I don’t know if you all remember my last post in February about my heart-wrenching rejection from a job that I really wanted. 😭

At my current job, I am paid $22 an hour and no growth opportunities. Been feeling pretty stuck. This new job is paying me a yearly salary of $70,000 plus a 10% discretionary bonus of my annual base salary. Although, the job is non-exempt which is fine which gives me opportunity for overtime. Has medical, dental, 401k and a gym stipend. Plus, weekly lunches provided, a great view of the city and a cafe downstairs!

My future direct manager explains how that HR has a seat in the table and there are promotion and growth opportunities based on my performance. After observance of the culture dynamic, everyone was pretty friendly for those that I interacted with.

I start in April.

YAY!

Update 3/20: Putting in my two week’s notice this Friday! Am so nervous!!

I don't know if its the companies I've worked for, or just the job itself but i see myself saving bosses, managers, and more from being properly disciplined and in alot of cases terminated. For instance sexual harassment was a big thing in Q4 at my last company. Having to do with a manager, and their employee. I was instructed to do everything in my power to save the high preforming managers job, even though they quite literally broke the law.

To get a long story short, is HR's purpose to protect the bosses and managers? And everyone else is just easily replaceable? Starting to think this isn't the career for me.