I’m about to leave my job after five years. I was headhunted, so it wasn’t that I was particularly unhappy or desperate to leave - I just got a very good offer. I have a great relationship with my boss, who is disappointed I’m leaving, but understands that it’s a great opportunity. I’m glad to be leaving on good terms with her and the team and will only have good things to say about them in my exit interview.
However, I don’t feel the same way about HR. I know that, as a sector, it doesn’t exactly have a reputation for attracting the best and brightest, but this is genuinely the worst team I’ve ever come across in my career. I had to deal with the then Assistant UK Manager a couple of years back and she was robotic, utterly lacking in empathy and made several mistakes. She’s since been promoted to UK Manager 🙄
As you can tell, I have no time for her, but it isn’t about personal dislike. The whole department is run extremely poorly. Everything is very “computer sez no”; there’s nothing approaching common sense in any of their decisions. Last year, they opened the annual review feedback system - with a fixed window of two weeks - on 12 December. Our annual review deadline was Boxing Day. They used the same system to open an important survey on 17 December. It’s like Christmas and New Year - which in my experience roll around roughly every year - and all the associated disruption don’t exist in their world. They must have had complaints, because they moved the annual review forward by six weeks without a word, meaning you were buggered if you’d happened to book those two weeks off. There have been many other organisational issues too.
I wanted to say all this in my exit interview. But now I find they’re sending the most junior member of the team possible to do it. Not even the Assistant Manager; I’m essentially getting the secretary. I feel insulted, and it’s just another sign of their lack of interest, or even general critical thinking. They haven’t even bothered to find out whether the company is desperate to keep me or thrilled to be rid of me.
As I say, I wanted to talk up my boss and leave on a high note. But I feel like I have to get all this out there. Maybe it won’t do any good, but at least I’ve got closure.
WWYD?