HR Horror Stories

We asked for your scariest employee performance appraisal stories, your worst fears and the things that cause you nightmares. Your answers were truly frightening!

The winner of our contest is…

Michele Zammit, ICAP Service North America LLC

Congratulations Michele!

Here’s a selection of some of the best responses. You might feel a haunting shiver or two as you read some of these.

What is your scariest appraisal story?

A manager who just copied his employees’ self appraisals and submitted them as his own – for 12 employees!!

As VP of HR at a hospital, there was a nurse who was evaluated on delivering meds, and told her supervisor she “followed what the voices in her head told her to do”.

Paper reviews that were due in early November were still being followed up on in May of the following year! Eeek – scary time burglars!

Our old process where feedback from multiple evaluators was typed into a manual form and color-coded by evaluator because they wanted it to be anonymous. Plus all source paper documents were retained causing a huge volume of paper for each evaluator.

An employee who flat-out said that her tardiness was not going to change, and that we might want to start looking for someone else for her position! Talk about having some nerve!

A check off form that rated the following: Attendance, Appearance, Friendliness, Reading, Math. The ratings? “Good” or “Bad”! That was it! Be afraid…..be VERY afraid!

The mother of the 20-something year old that wanted her son’s score raised so that he could get a better raise because “he deserved it.” She offered to come in and show me reference letters from his teachers and former employers, to reinforce her story.

My HR horror used to be salary review time! Every November the merit process would loom on the horizon like a storm rolling in. Our manual process consisted of sending out individual spreadsheets to each supervisor, manager and director. Our wonderfully creative managers would tweak the spreadsheets by changing the column order, formats, formulas, etc.

When someone wrote “Bob did pretty good for an old guy”.

We require individuals to answer a mandatory question inquiring about if they have encountered any situations throughout the past year. We had one individual rehash an issue that occurred 12 year ago… some grudges never go away.

What strikes fear into you most on a daily basis?

I will have to enter data manually.

Changing passwords for all the users who forgot their own passwords!

When the ghosts and goblins regardless of the haunted house they work at are not given the feedback and mentoring necessary to grow.

Paper… too much paper!!!

Business decisions regarding hiring and promotion based on emotional, subjective, anecdotal criteria.

Nothing–I have been in HR for over 10 years–nothing scares me anymore!

Managers who don’t grasp that their job is to “manage” – not “do”.

Seeing myself in the mirror.

When anyone comes into my office… and closes the door.

Spiders… and inexperienced supervisors.

I wake up at 4 a.m. and hear noises in my house.

What future issues do you think will cause you nightmares?

Having bodies but not minds or spirits present each day.

Procrastinators – folks who will wait until the last minute to complete their evaluations.

Succession planning, compensation planning and still the unexpected!

Finding enough talented employees and keeping them.

The number of people due to retire in our company in the next 10 years!

Global/internationalized staff, multiple language needs in the workplace

Succession planning — yikes. What a concept.

Finding enough talented employees and keeping them!

Employees newer to the workforce expecting frequent promotions and salary increases and their inability to accept anything less as motivational feedback so they’ll skip from job to job and the company will have fewer employees staying long enough for the company to have a positive return on investment of their training and development.

Finding qualified ghouls to fill our open positions.

Which of the following Ghouls terrifies you most?:

33.8 % Zombies: Those whose minds and dedication have left long ago leaving just a vacant body behind to do the job.

43.8 % Vampires: Those who hide in the shadows and suck your organization’s resources dry.

22.5 % Ghosts: Those who seem to walk through walls and disappear into thin air when called upon