7 HR Horror Stories That Will Make You Shudder

A Bad Recruitment Decision

I was working in recruitment when we had a big push to hire a bunch of new graduates. We had a list of about 200 candidates that we were interviewing, and I was in charge of scheduling all the interviews. It quickly became clear that there wasn't enough time to interview all the candidates, so we started cutting people from the list. One day, I got a call from one of the candidates who had been cut. She was hysterical, crying and begging me to let her come in for an interview. She said she really needed the job and would do anything to get it. I felt bad for her, so I agreed to let her come in. Long story short, she ended up getting the job. A few months later, she was fired for stealing company property. So that was a pretty big nightmare!

Antreas Koutis, Administrative Manager, Financer

I Was Terrified to Answer the Phone

Trust me when I say sparks will fly when you mistake someone's pay. I was in compensation working on an adjustment for an employee whose PTO was marked as unpaid. When the problem came to me, the pay was close to two weeks late. They called me in tears, shouting. Saying they would be unable to pay their rent, that I was starving her, and that I deserved a whole bunch of horrible things to happen to me. Perfect, excited to help. "No worries." I said. "We will adjust the pay and get it to you tomorrow." I processed it, put it in the system, and then wiped my hands clean. Then the manager called me to tell me three months ago, they forgot to schedule in vacation the employee took, so their PTO balance was zero when they took the week in question. The payment had to be canceled, and their next full paycheck was still a few days off. I sent the employee the update via email. Then ignored the 100+ calls I had that day from her.

Dan Reed, Career Coach & HR Consultant, Top Prospect Careers

Assuming is Dangerous

There was a rape in the facility where I worked at the time and the police sketch looked just like an employee. That employee did have a criminal history that included sexual assault. Everyone wanted me to fire them immediately. I asked each employee to tell me what they knew privately including that one - who happened to have been on call. The employee explained that they were in a halfway program that included being in a locked facility at night so they traded their call hours with another employee. The employee had been inside the locked facility at the time of the rape. While all things pointed to the worst case scenario, asking ensured we stayed on the right track. Instead of assuming, ask with a mind open to the possibilities.

Cathy Liska, CEO, Center for Coaching Certification

Someone Was Cutting Others’ Pay

In a perfect world, everyone would be kind and respectful to one another. Sadly, this isn't always the case. In today's workplace, there are many people who take advantage of their power or play dirty with co-workers. As an HR professional, I've seen a lot of things. But one thing that I still remember is the time when I was called into my boss' office because he found out that someone in his department was taking pay cuts from others by reducing their hours so they could keep more money for themselves. When we investigated further, we found out that a senior female employee had done it to several other employees over the course of years without getting caught! When we caught up to her and confronted her about it, she denied everything at first. It took us almost two weeks to finally get enough evidence against her to fire her. I'll never forget how angry she looked after we told her she was being let go.

Adina David, Recruiter and Career Coach, Jobzhut

Employee Got Drunk at the Office

You're not going to believe this, but one time I had a horrible experience being HR. One of my employees got drunk at the office. It is difficult to even think about such things happening at the workplace. This person was so drunk that he started making a scene and causing a disturbance. It was really embarrassing for everyone in the workplace. Unfortunately, I had to call security and have him escorted out of the building. I still don't know what he was thinking. I mean, who gets drunk at the office? It's just not logical. It was one of the unbelievable experiences that I had being HR.

Joe Troyer, CEO & Growth Advisor, Digital Triggers

Emailing Inappropriate Content

One horror story I encountered was before our company made it clear that sharing inappropriate content on company accounts was a disgusting conduct. We found that an employee was using his company email to send inappropriate messages and links to people. The company got to know of his behavior when he harassed one of our own employees by emailing grotesquely obscene photographs via the company intranet. We immediately called a meeting and let go of the employee. Upon checking their email, we found that they have sent similar emails to over 10 women. We decided to remind the employees about appropriate company conduct during the onboarding process from then.

Deepa Tailor, Owner and Founder of Tailor Law, Tailor Law

I Hired a Toxic Person for My Company

I had an employee who was constantly calling in sick and it began to affect productivity. When I spoke to her about it, she claimed that she was "sick" because she was pregnant. However, when I asked to see a doctor's note, she could not produce one. It turns out she was lying about her pregnancy and had been for months.

Martin Seeley, CEO, Mattress Next Day

We know it can be a scary world for HR professionals. But no worries - QuickHR is here to help you whatever horrors come your way!

QuickHR is an all-inclusive HRMS platform designed to eliminate traditional HR problems such as payroll errors, bad hiring decisions, and more.

Experience smoother, faster, secure, and accurate HR processes with QuickHR! Book a free demo today!