HR person secretly helped her mom get hired, coworker is identifying herself as a psychologist when she’s not, and more

[ResidentialBusiness]

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Our HR person helped her mom get hired in secret

I work for a small company of 12 people, led by two partners. In the hierarchy of the company, I am the next tier down from the partners. We are not large enough to have an HR department, so our accountant, “Jan,” operates as the HR person as well as office manager.

We have been looking to hire an executive assistant for the company’s partners and Jan has been in charge of placing the ads, screening the resumes, and doing initial interviews. Jan also attended the interviews with the partners and candidates. An interview was set up with a candidate, but Jan was unable to attend as she was out sick. About a week later, we received an email that this candidate had been hired. We later found out through the rumor mill that this new employee is Jan’s mother and that partners did not know about it until after the offer was made. So far, nothing official regarding their relationship has been shared with the office. Neither Jan nor her mother mentioned at any point in the process that they are mother and daughter. I do know that Partner 1 was not pleased that this information was kept from him, but has the mindset that they need someone in the position, so they are just going to go with it and said that if it doesn’t work out, it’s going to be awkward when Jan has to let her mother go.

There are so many things wrong with this, I don’t know where to begin! I won’t be working directly with Jan’s mother so it probably won’t affect me much one way or another, but part of the job is to help out with accounting, so Jan could potentially be supervising her own mother in some capacity. Our employee handbook does have a small section on employing family members, saying they can’t supervise each other. To me, this brings up serious questions about nepotism and ethics and what appears to be a conscious effort from both of them to conceal this information from the partners.

I have some standing to let both partners know that the optics surrounding this look pretty bad and I worry that this blatant display of poor judgement does not bode well for the future. I guess I know this is really bad, and am interested in your take on the situation.

Yeah, that’s a massive problem. It would be a bad idea to hire someone’s mom to work closely with them under most circumstances, and doubly so if the daughter is the HR person*. (Is she really going to handle complaints about her mom impartially? And even if she is, are people likely to believe they can safely raise complaints about her mom?) But the fact that they both went out of their way to hide the relationship — and it’s not believable that in a small office where Jan was involved with the hiring she wouldn’t think to mention that one of the interviewees was her mom — makes it much, much worse; it shows that they’re willing to to subvert professional norms and transparency in order to advance their own agenda, which is the exact opposite of what you’d need if you have two relatives working together.

By all means, let the partners know that the secrecy and nepotism look terrible (from anyone, but especially from your HR person). But it sounds like this is going forward regardless, so I’d brace for the dumpster fire.

* In an office of 12, “accountant who handles HR on the side because someone has to” usually means things like benefits administration, not substantive employee relations work (including things like investigations of things like discrimination or harassment) … but your mention that Jan is the one who would end up firing her mom indicates that Jan’s HR role may be bigger than is typical with this set-up, which makes this worse.

2. Coworker is identifying herself as a psychologist when she’s not

I work at an outpatient mental health clinic as a case manager. My coworkers and I are all on a team of case managers that don’t require any degrees or certifications. If you want to move up to become a therapist or clinical supervisor, you need your masters in counseling, clinical psych, or a PH.D.

When I was collecting mail for my clients, I started noticing an influx of mail for my coworker, which I found strange. The mail was coming from several different banks and I started noticing it showed her full name, along with the title “clinical psychologist” and business owner.

I looked into it and saw that she is advertising herself online as a business owner as a clinical psychologist and takes client appointments at our address. Most of the mail is coming from several different banks so I am thinking (although unsure) that she may be receiving business loans or something of the sort identifying herself as a clinical psychologist who runs her own business. The other thing is I also found her on several websites advertising herself as a “mental health counselor” and either a Psy.D, PH.D, or clinical therapist on yellow pages, white pages, and for one insurance company with her name and our business address. It shows our address on one and on another it shows her as a psychologist for her previous job.

Do I submit all of this to HR? Do I let it go and mind my own business?

Are you sure she’s not a clinical psychologist? It’s possible she has credentials you don’t know about.

Otherwise, though, the potential for harm to patients and your clinic’s reputation is high enough that yes, flag it for HR and let them decide if there’s any action they need to take. You can frame it as, “There may be an explanation for this that I’m not privy to, but it alarmed me enough that I wanted to bring it to your attention in case it’s something you’d want to know.”

3. Handshakes and sweaty palms

I’ve had abnormally sweaty hands my whole life. I don’t know exactly when or how the excess sweat will start or what triggers it; sometimes it happens when I’m nervous, but sometimes I am merely existing. It does not seem to be correlated to temperature or how many layers I am wearing.

Usually this doesn’t cause me more than some minor inconveniences, but I had a situation the other day that I’m afraid will repeat itself, especially as I get older and more into the workforce. I was meeting a professor for the first time, and as I was leaving, she held out her hand for me to shake. Not knowing how to decline, I shook it, even though my hands were sweaty. She immediately wiped her hand on her pant leg, and I realized what I’d done. In the future, how would you recommend I deal with this situation? Sometimes when people try to high-five me and my hands are sweaty, I fist-bump them instead, but it seems inappropriate to offer a fist-bump when someone offers me a handshake.

Can you discreetly wipe your hands on your pants first, especially when you’re in a situation where you know a handshake might be coming (like any time you’re meeting someone new)? If you’re worried it’s noticeable that you’re patting your pants, say, “Sorry, my hand is damp!” (That could mean you just washed them, for all anyone knows.) There’s also the option of just confidently and cheerfully saying, “I’ve switched to fist bumps since Covid!” You won’t be the only one.

There are also medical treatments available if it’s something that really bothers you and you want to go that route.

4. I don’t know how to respond to this job rejection feedback

I’m a mid-career professional in tech who got laid off a few months ago. I’ve been applying and interviewing for similar roles ever since, but a couple of recent rejections have somehow gotten me really depressed and demoralized.

Both positions seemed like a good fit, and I was able to develop a good rapport with the hiring managers during each respective interview. However, the feedback I received was:

1. I didn’t have enough experience with a specific kind of document that’s relevant to my industry but not readily shared unless you need access for a specific reason, as it contains quite a bit of confidential client data (none of the projects I worked on required me to access that level of data, so I never had access to this document).

2. A well-liked former employee expressed interest in the position after I’d been scheduled for an interview, so the company went with them.

I know these are relatively normal things to hear when interviewing (and it’s not the first time I’ve heard them either), but I don’t know how I can make myself a better candidate for these kinds of roles with this kind of feedback. At least if it had been something like a lack of technical skill, that would still be something actionable that I can work on.

I have more interviews in the pipeline, but I find myself anticipating rejection for similar reasons as I’m preparing, and I’m starting if it’s time to just quit this industry altogether and pivot to a different career/industry. Do you have any advice on how to stay motivated during a slump like this?

Not all feedback is actionable, or needs to be. Sometimes it’s just an explanation or context.

It you’re regularly hearing that you need experience with the kind of document from #1, that could be a sign that you’ve got to find a way to get that experience in order to be a serious contender for these jobs. But if you have no reason to believe it’s a widespread requirement (like hearing that from multiple interviewers or seeing it in most of the ads you’re interested in), there’s nothing much you have to conclude here (other than if you do get the opportunity to work with that document in the future, you should take it).

The second item — they hired someone already well-known to them — is just a thing that happens, and not anything you need to respond differently to.

For what it’s worth, you won’t always get useful feedback, or any feedback, when you’re job-searching, and it’s not a sign of failure if don’t. You’re much more likely to get useful feedback from mentors and people working in the field you’re applying in.

5. Employees aren’t paid for short bathroom or coffee breaks

This happened last year, and has nothing to do with me, but it struck me as odd, so I thought I’d ask for your take on it.

I work in the legal field. In the course of an online conversation about billing, someone commented that the staff at their firm are W2 employees, but don’t clock in/out and they only get paid for the time they bill. They clarified that any time spent not working on a case, such as lunch or bathroom visits, is unpaid.

I’ve worked at various law firms, but I’ve never heard of anything like this. Admittedly, I’m no expert on employment law, but this sounds like they’re being paid per project (i.e., they spend four hours working on the John Doe case, so they get paid for four hours of work, but the 10 minutes they take to run to the restroom or get a cup of water before starting the next project isn’t paid), which does not seem very W2-ish. Is this a common practice that I’ve just never encountered before, or is this as weird as it seems?

Surprise! It’s yet another law firm violating employment laws. If they’re W2 employees, not independent contractors, they’re legally required to be paid for all the time they’re expected to be at work, even if that includes down time in between projects (it’s called “engaged to wait”). Moreover, federal law requires that short breaks of 20 minutes or less be treated as paid time.

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