What does it take to be completely untouchable at work?

I have only known 2 cases like this.

One was the chairman's son (who was smart enough to resign and go elsewhere when his old dad retired).

The other (this was back in the 70s when I first went to work) had been the Managing Director's navigator in the RAF when the MD was a bomber pilot.

In my work experience it's been because the boss made it clear to managers that this person is protected and when someone has spoken against them it backfired against the complainant so that made a lesson for everyone not to bother this person.
The person was in one place related to the boss and at another place she was having an affair with thr married boss so he kept her happy to avoid her telling his wife or bringint a case against him.

I knew a woman like this. Someone had apparently messed up during the interview process that left the company vulnerable so she was hired and they let her get on with it. I never found out what 'it' was but assume it was bad.

He will be covered by the 2010 equalities act. You sure it is a man?

I do wonder how people can complete their end of year review with any achievements if they actually do nothing all day. And who would be prepared to put their own job on the line by falsifying the record by signing them off as having met their objectives.

Maybe he doews more behind the scenes that you don't see.

Or Nepotism. Or he has something over the big boss? Could be anything.

I had one of these as a manager. She was vile to some people, there were complaints but they seemed to just hit a brick wall in HR. There was lots of her playing favourites in the team, eg her BFF went off on maternity leave, she arranged a huge collection, pile of gifts, ballons all over the desk, leaving party etc etc. I went off on mat leave a couple of months later (same team, same manager) and I got a card. She was useless at her job, useless at managing, was almost never at her desk, and some of us were astonished when she was kept on after a round of redundancies post covid, when some really very good managers were let go. But then it turned out she was sleeping with the company owner's son. So, untouchable.
She's still there now. She was a good part of the reason why I left, along with the way the company allowed her to behave.

Does he happen to be the Union Rep by any chance?

This 100%. Going through the relevant processes comes at such a cost to the line manager (in terms of time and emotion) that it can be easier to work around the problem.

I'll be candid - your OP is based on conjecture and your personal perception of reality.

You don't know that HR "won't touch his case" (what "case"?) and you have admitted that it's "From what I’ve gathered"

so I can't really take the facts as give seriously, I'm afraid - nobody other than on MN and on £100K 3 at week, company car drifts around doing nothing all day and is untouchable.

hitchcock & sully innit
strategic incompetence, i.e. they rather spend 2 hours looking in the employee handbook to avoid work that would take an hour...

More fool them

There's always one, isn't there?

Sometimes they can be otherwise crap but have even a small amount of knowledge about something that'll cause a huge headache if they're absent. Eg Our data manager was a pro on Excel and regularly did a quick job for someone that'd take them days. But otherwise a negative drain to work with who ground everyone down and wasn't v good at the day to day job.

Claiming “mental health” issues or being good at sales are the free passes I’ve seen colleagues given in my career

I've frequently worked with 'untouchables'. Beggars belief what some people can get away with not doing

I used to work for an organisation which had a small clique of bullies, including a departmental manager. For years they got away with terrible behaviour thanks to the manager’s nepotism. But eventually, the departmental manager was made redundant and over the next few years, many of his henchmen were made redundant too.

I don’t think anyone is truly untouchable. Even if it’s a family business and all the family have the same mindset, there’s always the risk that the badly-managed company will fold. I know of a small charity that’s in real danger of this - they can’t keep staff due to managerial bullying, and the service they provide is deteriorating. If they can’t sort it out, they’ll lose their contract with the local authority and that will be the end of them.

Agree that in a dysfunctional organisation this happens. I see it happen a lot with high performers, even if otherwise extremely difficult to work with. They can't afford to lose them.

If he's mediocre, I also assume he's got something over them somehow.

Usually it’s nepotism.

Sometimes you get people who are so incredibly charismatic, everyone loves them and thinks they’re brilliant, but don’t actually do very much. They might have done something really successful once and having been dining out off it forever.

tbf, I don’t think anyone is truly untouchable in the private sector. It just takes a change at a very senior level and they’ll be out on their arse. Worked with a woman who got away with murder because she was shagging the big boss. When he was removed from his role, people stopped putting up with her behaviour and she went a few months later.

No because not everyone could live with themselves. It’s why everyone doesn’t tax dodge or steal or falsify their expenses even if they know they can get away with it.

If that was the case surely every one would be slacking / doing enough to get by / sailing close to the wind ? I think it's more a case of a gift of the gab .

Mental health issues make you pretty untouchable ime

Having worked in local government for years I would say incompetent management and too many workers rights.
At the first sign of any complaints about their work some people will run to the unions and complain of racism/bullying/mental health issues.
Instead of reviewing the situation and seeing if they have a case the unions automatically back them and management cave into threats.

someone i used to work with but thankfully not in my team. He had a hotline to HR and the union, he was known to be willing to go legal.

He left in the end and he pulled off the ultimate CF move that left most of us amazed!

He would get the bus to work. Say he started at 8, the bus would drop him off virtually outside the door at around 7.45. he would then go into the building. I very much doubt he logged on so would have been making a brew etc.

When he left he billed the company for the 15 minutes he was in the building each day, it was around 2 to 3 grand. It was not the companies fault the bus got him there early and he choose to go into the office early.

But they paid it, as they knew he would go to tribunal.

There was a guy where I worked who was like this. Lots of complaints about him which were ignored and he was never pulled up about any of it. He was absolutely vile and a bully.

My theory was that top management were very weak and he did their dirty work for them. He had also applied for a very senior role years before and I think they felt guilty.