#2 – Karen is exchanging her time for the money the company is giving her (I assume fairly) to do the things that she did not do – take care of clients, be available to her co-workers, etc. If she isn’t doing that she needs to forfeit (sp?) some of the money she’s getting. Taking equivalent vacation days from her is very justified, which, apparently the manager has already done but insisting on a written warning as well feels kind of vindictive.

#3 – I have 6 kids myself so I understand that “stuff happens” but you’ve got to take care of both work and personal stuff. Not that you will always do both exceptionally well (the voice of experience) but you’ve got to take care of at least the bare minimum at all times – IMHO, that one of the things that separates the “…good hire[s] with potential” from those that aren’t.

We don’t yet know why Karen was off. She could have been in a car wreck and now lying comatose in an emergency room. Without the facts, any action is premature.

The point about clear expectations is dead on. Clear expectations are both stated and enforced. Merely having a policy does not constitute clear expectations.

I tell the supervisors I train to distinguish between noticing something and documenting it. That way you’re not playing “gotcha” with the people who work for you. So last month, the manager could have approached Karen and said, “I’ve noticed that you’ve called out sick twice in the last week. When you do that it affects our relations with clients and makes extra work for the rest of us. I want to make sure you understand our policy on this and I want you to know that I’ll be documenting future instances.”

We don’t know if anything like that happened. We don’t know lots of things. We don’t know if the sick policy as stated is uniformly enforced across the company or by this particular manager. And we don’t know the culture of the company. In real life we’d have that.

Beth has a good point insofar as HR does not exist simply to block managers, and respect should indeed be given to managers’ opinions.

On the other hand, respect for a manager’s opinions is not the same thing as giving written warnings at the manager’s discretion, even after a conference. The whole point of a conference is to decide whether or not something like a written warning is necessary to begin with. If at the end of the conference it is left up to one of the parties – the manager – to determine that it is necessary, that defeats the purpose of the conference.

If the conference is presided over by, or at least involves, an HR person, then the outcome of that conference should incorporate HR’s independent views as well. If the manager has the authority to issue a written warning on her own authority, let her do so – on her own.

As Beth herself points out, a written warning should not be given for violations of expectations that had not previously been spelled out to the employee. If HR is able to enforce that standard, it should do so. (Presumably if that were not the case, the manager would not have bothered coming to HR in this case.)

If on the other hand HR cannot stop a manager from taking a personnel action that HR hasn’t determined is warranted, at least HR should withdraw its implicit approval.

Jeff Deutsch

I enjoy reading evilHRlady’s blog, and the comments, because I’m learning about a corporate area I have very little contact with, being in a satellite office with excellent managers to report to.

I would also question Karen to see if FMLA is a potential issue here.

The manager harassing the employee could be a potential legal issue in some places.

Where I work, an hourly employee has to schedule vacation time in advance, sick leave is for the employee only (although we don’t check up to see who exactly is ill if someone calls off since we don’t require a doctor’s note), and any other time off is taken as unpaid time off.

To the manager, I would ask if she has given Karen any verbal warnings and/or talked to her about calling off and would remind her of what official policy is. I would reprimand Karen if and only if she has been warned before and if she had violated company policy in a way that can be proven other than the whole ‘who is the sick time for’ thing. For example, if there were a policy stating, ‘If you are going to be out, please notify so and so so they can handle your clients in your absence’ that were violated, I would call her on that.

It’s interesting that your description of this well-respected manager focuses on her results and not her methods. Another commenter asked good questions about the manager’s style and whether this type of reaction is normal for her. If it is, does this type of management style fit into the company’s culture? If it doesn’t fit — in other words, if this is not the type of management behavior that upper-upper-level managers would find acceptable — I’d recommend talking things out with the manager before moving forward with anything involving Karen. The goal would be to make the manager better at her job before attacking Karen. (As Ask A Manager said, if Karen didn’t know that not answering e-mails and calls was unacceptable, then the person to start with is the manager, not the employee.)

If the manager’s reaction is typical management style for the company, then I’d recommend a meeting with the manager and Karen and myself, to see what Karen thought the expectations were before and formal paperwork was completed. The goal then would become making Karen a “better” employee, in terms of helping her fit the with company culture and making sure that she’s meeting expecations.

I was chilled by the response of the non-HR person here that said he/she would dicipline Karen immediately and in writing. Wow. I suspect that this reaction is what non-HR folks think that HR does every time a manager demands something. HR people at the sucky places to work may have to do that. But a healthy company culture and HR department would look at a bunch of different angles on the situation and the projected outcome of each response before granting the manager’s demand. Immediately doing what this manager wants would be the fastest way for Karen to resent the company and become an unproductive short-timer with an attitude — and that’s even worse for everyone, including the company itself.