A friend of mine complained to me about her idiotic colleague few days ago. She’s the HR executive in her company. This idiot is a loner in the office due to his unique characteristics – tai chi master, boastful (quite extreme, according to her), childish, loves to laugh at people’s weaknesses, and other things you would expect from an idiot.

To be honest, I pity her because I have quite a similar experience as well.

I then threw her one question “Why don’t you find a way to force him out?”

She replied “My colleagues and I have tried isolating him. But he’s still the same! Our HR policy does not allow us to terminate someone due to their idiotic behavior. And so far, he didn’t do anything which is against the policy of the company (aka misconduct).”

She’s right. If there’s such an employee in your company who doesn’t do anything against the policy of the company and still do his job (pretty good too), there’s no good reason for you to terminate him unless you want the company reputation to go down the drain.

But the fact that this guy is bothering nearly every single employee (except the bosses) in my friend’s company doesn’t help either. I’ve seen such cases before in my previous companies and the idiots actually left soon after the isolation. Guess the case with my friend’s company is that the idiot does not want to leave. There are already few good people who left because of him and this is not good for the company.

And to be honest with you, I can’t think of anything to handle this guy – except for isolation from colleagues and if possible, bosses.

Maybe that’s why people always say prevention is better than cure. Always recruit people carefully. It’s true that it’s never easy to recruit good people, but I feel that it’s even harder NOT to recruit idiots. Reference checks? Those are useful but they are not 100% accurate. But it’s better than nothing at all.

If I were the boss, I will take in an average guy as my new employee rather than an idiot – all the time. No point ruining the spirit of the entire company because of one person.

Remember, no one person is bigger than the company.

A friend of mine was actively looking for job recently and just few days ago, he told me he finally got an offer. And he has signed the offer letter.

I was happy for him but few days later, he told me he got another job offer which is much better in terms of pay, benefits and prospects.

And he started to worry because he has signed the offer letter. Can he still join the new company? Fortunately for him, the notice period for his new job (under probation) is 24 hours. What if it’s 1 month? I’m sure some of you might have encountered such situation before.

I’ve talked to few of my recruiter friends and even my HR who is a good friend of mine. They said that the new employee can choose not to turn up at all even after signing the offer letter. They have experienced many incidents such as this. The company does have the rights to file a lawsuit against this new employee since he or she has already signed the offer letter.

However, most companies will not pursue this. They will not spend time and money to sue one person which don’t turn up for first day of work. Furthermore, involving in a little lawsuit with a new employee who failed to turn up, is just a petty issue. It might actually ruin the company’s reputation.

I must admit though that I cannot guarantee all companies will behave like this. Maybe there are some companies which will pursue this case though I yet to know any.

That’s why the best solution which I can think of is to call the company up and explains. If your the HR of the second company knows, maybe you can ask them for advice. If they don’t, just call the first company and explain. If things don’t go well, you can either let the second company knows (and hoping they will help you) or you will just have to let it go and turn up for work in the first company.

Unless you are willing to take the risk of not turning up without informing.

But either way, you will most probably get blacklisted by the first company for at least a few years (either you resign within 24 hours or not turn up at all). Companies don’t tend to blacklist a new employee forever for something such as this. They will not be bothered too much with it, not for that long anyway.

To summarize everything:

1. You signed offer letter from company A.
2. You get a better offer from company B and decided to join.
3. You should call company A to explain. If they are okay, good.
4. If they are not okay, call company B’s HR and inform them. See if they can help you. This is the last resort.
5. If company B refuses to advise or help and company A refuses to back off, you have to let go of company B.
6. All the above don’t apply if you are willing to risk it and don’t turn up for company A. Just be prepared to face the consequences of being in a lawsuit (though the probability is very very very low, it is still a risk).

That’s why I always tell people not to sign the offer letter until the very last minute. However, things don’t always go the way we want it to.

And at the end of the day, the question will be, are you willing to take the risk? Is the new offer good enough for you to take the risk?

Hope it helps.

Human Resource (HR) department IS the most important department in every company. No matter how much the “big boss” denies this fact….a fact is still a fact. Many companies have failed because they don’t have a good HR department. Worse, some don’t even have a HR department! Some, in order to save cost, combine the HR department with…say…Finance?

That’s very unhealthy for the company.

But what if the company DOES have a HR department……but it’s not effective at all? Give the HR folks warning……and if they don’t improve, it’s either the problem lies with the “big boss” or it’s time to kick them out.

During my 4 years of working in the IT industry, I’ve seen some very lousy HR policies and HR executives. And most of the time, the HR executives involved are pretty senior people who are not that easy to be disposed of.

There was this HR director who was very senior…….he behaved like someone who should not be in the HR industry – he gossiped a lot during his time as the HR executive. He talked about the employees’ personal life, their weaknesses, how they screwed up the project or why those employees didn’t get promotion …….. in the presence of other employees who are closer to him.

And there was this HR executive who knew nothing…..and well….just claimed he knew nothing. Hahhaa. Basically whenever the employees asked him some HR-related questions, he wouldn’t dare to say much. Maybe because he was afraid his boss might chop him off for revealing too much information?

Last but not least…….there was this HR recruiter who did a reference check on the job candidate by calling the candidate’s current company. =_= How unprofessional is that ?!?! The victim was my friend and he ended up in the director’s room to “explain” why he wanted to leave.

To be honest, if I were the “big boss”, I wouldn’t want to have such HR people around. HR is supposed to make the employees feel more comfortable and not to make their life more miserable.

p/s….. the “big boss” should also try not to interfere with the HR policies.

Impression has always been a very important thing. When you go meet a new client, the first impression the client has of you may decide whether he’s going to buy from you or not. Same goes for a job interviewee – you only have that 1 or 2 times to make a good impression.

What bout Human Resource recruiter (headhunters are not tied to the company and the company’s work culture)? Impression is also very important. It gives the candidate a brief “look” at how your company works.

Few years ago, a HR recruiter of a Singaporean company called me for interview. Prior to the call, I was pretty interested in what the company was doing at that time. But after the call, I turned down. Why? Because called me twice – 9pm on 1 day, and 10pm on another day. On the second occasion, she thought I was a new candidate.

And just recently, another recruiter called me. I was very very interested in the job description actually (no, I didn’t apply) but I turned it down anyway. Why? Because she called me at 11.30pm.

The good thing is that these HR recruiters did not try to hide the fact their respective company’s work culture is to work until very late. It’ll be much worse if you go to a new company, ONLY to realize that their work culture doesn’t suit you.

Still, it is also undeniable that……they were scaring the candidates off by calling the candidates at such ungodly hour.

So if you’re a recruiter, try to call the potential candidates at around 6-7pm. I think that’s the best timing to call.

Remember, first impression is very important.

Human Resource (HR) has always play an important role in every organization. I always believe a bad HR will bring in bad employees and of course, a good HR will bring in the people who will benefit the organization. However, HR is one of the most neglected departments in most organizations….but that’s another story altogether.

Recently I met a friend of mine in London. He’s working in quite a big multinational IT company located in Central London. The HR of his company is working hard to implement some new policies and to improve the level of satisfaction among the employees. They (the HR) came out with an employee survey in order to know what are the things the employees like and dislike.

The entire survey took 2 months to complete and the result of the survey was posted to all employees in March. My friend’s boss then went through some of the “common” concerns with my friend and his team.

Some of the “common concerns” :

• Employee stock option not as good as other companies
• No proper medical benefits for family
• Not enough facilities such as printers and scanners
• Workspace too small

etc….

But the most important one out of so many concerns (around 15-20) is……..

“I feel I am underpaid”

And the funny thing is what came out from my friend’s boss after that. He said “Due to the fact that this appears in our HR survey every year……and same goes for almost all companies out there……..we decided to ignore it as it is not relevant”.

Hahhaa, when my friend told me that, i couldn’t help but laughed! Well, in a way, what the boss said IS quite true. Employees will never feel satisfy with their current pay…..but to say that they will ignore it….is just…weird.

No drawing for today since I’m a little bit tired. Maybe I should stick to 3 comics per week. Hahha. I also believe my comics are better when I am not tired