‘What’s the biggest cock-up by HR that you’ve witnessed?’ – 22 epic work mistakes by people who are meant to know what they’re doing

12.

‘I was the victim of a criminal assault that left me in a coma. When my partner informed HR, HR said to staff that i was off for mental health purposes. During my recovery, I had a birthday party and a holiday in which my girlfriend posted pictures to social media. The boomers at the work place got their knickers in a twist because I was living it up, claiming I was ‘depressed’.

I rushed myself back to work as I hated sitting doing nothing and got nothing but grief and odd digs from certain staff. I didn’t want to mention what I had been through but eventually I did after getting continuous grief and the people who were being rude then had the face of ‘oh fuck’.’
–Worldly_Client_7614

13.

‘One place I worked at, security came up to someone at their desk and marched them straight out the door in front of everyone. He had, apparently, been watching porn at work and had been dismissed as soon as HR found out.

Next week he was back at his desk. They’d sacked the wrong person. Someone else was quietly let go. I can’t imagine what the conversation was like when they asked him to come back.’
–PickaxeJunky

14.

‘I once worked for a UK local authority (don’t judge me). HR accidentally sent out a spreadsheet with every job title listed, with its salary, instead of just sending to a director. Imagine the amusement as literally hundreds of staff launched grievances about pay disparity. Ended up costing the council circa £10m against an annual budget of £100m to settle the grievances.’
–KibboKid

15.

‘Found letters firing people on the shared Google drive (including one for me!). I called them up on it and in the end didn’t get fired as I had some leverage in the end…’
–BrisTing123

16.

‘My white English HR manager telling me that all white people are inherently racist and think of ways to put down non-whites. She herself thinks this everyday and it is only through her HR training that she is able to repress these feelings.

The same manager when finding out my wife was Indian remarking that I only married her to show non-whites that we could take their women.’
–stevecoath

17.

‘A long time ago in retail my manager got bullied into confronting me about my hair and he spoke to HR and got permission to suspend me until I got a haircut. One phone call to HR later that was very quickly resolved once I pointed out this was a form of sexual discrimination.

10 years later I have a corporate job paying a lot more, and my hair is a lot longer.’
–DownrightDrewski

18.

‘I got added to a private Slack channel discussing a colleague’s disciplinary, with a bunch of messages advising the manager heading the investigation on how to phrase questions to make them difficult to respond to.’
–hunsnet457

19.

‘Our HR once emailed the CXO bonus and salary letters to all employees by mistake. Lol. Was a big scandal for a few days to realise we were earning peanuts.’
–Apprehensive_Sun1762

20.

‘A job application template being uploaded pre-populated with an old candidate’s details. GDPR nightmare.’
–paulieD4ngerously

21.

‘A guy asked the senior HR manager if he could move with his girlfriend to her home country (EU) and continue to hybrid work for the company. She said sure, no problem. Guy plans his move, heads over there, only for the HR manager to get told that no, this wasn’t going to be possible. The guy basically then gets the sack.’
–dav3j

22.

‘Received a call from Head of HR, effusively congratulating me on my pregnancy. I was most definitely not pregnant, and told her this. She insisted I was, and she knew because [manager of another woman who shares my name but is not me] had just emailed her. Realising that she’d definitely just outed [other woman who shares my name]’s pregnancy, I gently told her that she’d got the wrong [my name]. Mortification ensued, and a thousand apologies.’
–roseoftheshires

Source r/AskUK Image Screenshot