‘What’s the biggest HR cock-up that you’ve witnessed?’ – 17 most eye-opening corporate catastrophes

In the world of office politics, HR staff have a fairly thankless task. Often seen as the lackeys of higher management, they have garnered a bad reputation over the years.

All of which makes it even sweeter when they eventually screw up. MoonlightByWindow clearly wants to see the downfall of HR staff, as they invited r/AskReddit to share the biggest HR cock-ups that people have witnessed. They even kicked things off with a story of their own:

‘My friend was telling me about how the latest drama in their org is that someone was promoted to a managerial role. Big announcement email sent out to all staff, people in the office congratulating that person etc. A few hours later, HR announced that they’ve “suddenly” realised that someone else would be better suited for the role. Cue embarrassment.

Now I’m curious if there are any other stories like this.’

Book a 1-2-1 meeting with these top replies…

1.
‘HR came to see me a told me to collect my things and meet them in the office with a high up manager. So I did.

‘They then informed me I was being suspended from my job pending both an internal investigation and a possible criminal investigation I was suspected of gross misconduct (theft of money) and sexual harassment.

‘Manager looked dumbfounded during it, as I did. HR had somehow got themselves confused, I was the victim of the sexual harassment and the witness to the theft of money… ‍♀️’
-MissLotti

2.
‘A cock up I’ve been involved in – everyone’s contract at my level stated employees needed to give 3 months notice and the company only needs to give 1 month to let you go. But mine read that the company needed to give me 3 months notice.. so when redundancy came round I was in quite a strong position haha’
-CIMAJ98

3.
‘Work for the fire service. On the 1st day of training school, all the new recruits were discussing the selection process, practical assessment and interviews etc.

‘1 guy is suspiciously quiet…… He didn’t experience any of these things, just got a job offer after the initial application form…. He just had the same name as another applicant, and they sent the offer to the wrong guy.

‘He was pretty decent at the job though ‍♂️ had much worse candidates that HAD been through the testing!!’
-general__beef

4.
‘I decided to quit my government job and move to Australia one day.

‘Told my supervisor I was quitting and leaving at the end of the month. She wished me all the best and left it at that. I’m assuming she either didn’t inform HR that I was leaving or she did and they did nothing about it because they kept paying me after I left.’
-apeliott

5.
‘Got accused of stealing money. Suspended and fired.

‘This was despite me not even being in the country when the theft took place. I was on holiday in the USA. I told them this. Proved it on numerous occasions and was still dismissed.

‘Appealed and that was dismissed. Took them to tribunal and got a decent payout.

‘So because they didn’t do their due diligence in the investigation, what should have cost them £40 (the amount missing) it ended up costing them a few thousand.’
-TheEchoingVoid

6.
‘Programmer on an old VAX system (coding for a billing system) had been working for the company for years. Nice enough guy, bit of a prima donna but knew the system backwards, forwards, side to side – was by far the most productive person on the team and always the goto in the event of a problem.

‘Redundancies came around and he’d been thinking about retiring so put his name in for VR at an enhanced pay without really discussing it with anyone (he’d been rejected before). HR processed it, gave him a wheelbarrow full of cash and he didn’t turn up for work one Monday.

‘This was not a skillset you replaced easily. Was back as a contractor on 3x the salary 4 weeks later (breaking the HR no rehire rule). They initially had him on a 3 month contract train up replacement. He was still there 6 years later.’
-wabbit02

7.
‘An email saying “I’ve cut your post because you are pregnant”’
-Spottyjamie

8.
‘I work in Global Mobility, so we organise visas and help new starters relocate.

‘We were asked to get a visa for this guy in India and relocate him and his family to the UK. The process took about 2-3 months, with many back and forth. Until the visa was approved and the family landed in the UK. We found out 2 days before the start date that the role actually no longer existed, and our internal recruiter forgot to inform us nor the guy himself. This man quit his job and uprooted his family for a job that no longer existed.

‘The recruitment team knew they fucked up big time so they had 48 hours to source a new role for the guy and come up with some sort of lies as to why he is being placed in a different team instead. The guy has no idea his job no longer existed. He was super nice, too, still working at the company, and worked his way up to the director now.’
-Psychological-Bag272

9.
‘Pretty much any time HR tries to improve morale it has the opposite impact. For instance when they share a ‘mental health webinar’ or whatever, rather than addressing the issue, it makes things worse.’
-Craft_on_draft