Manage business contacts for Human resources

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- If you clicked this video, you're probably having an issue at work, and you're thinking about complaining to Human Resources. Now, if you watched my last video, you know that HR is not your friend. Their job is to protect the company from employees like you. I told you why, even if your HR rep genuinely wants to help you, he or she probably won't, and you need to think very carefully before you file that complaint. This video is about when you should complain to HR despite the risks I told you about. I will share with you the best way to complain to HR to maximize your chances of success, how you can minimize the chances of retaliation, and what kind of response you should expect. (upbeat music) Before we start tackling how best to complain to HR, let's make sure we're on the same page here. Number one, I'm an employment lawyer. My primary job is suing companies in California on behalf of wrongfully terminated employees. Over my relatively young career, I've literally reviewed thousands of potential cases from people just like you who complain to HR, and then something bad happened. I've heard the stories, I've seen the patterns, and I believe I have very unique insight into how HR behaves when workplace conflicts arise. Number two, the first video in this series called, "Why Human Resources Sucked," is essentially a prerequisite to understanding my suggestions in this video. So if you have not seen that, pause this one, and watch that one first. If you just watch this video without first seeing that one, you'll understand my recommendations here, but you won't understand why I'm making them. So don't be lazy, hit the pause button, go watch that one. I'll put a card up in the corner, so you can click over to that one. Number three, just like in the last video, this video is for employees who are having a significant issue at work. I'm referring to unpaid wages, harassment, extreme bullying, unlawful retaliation, etc. I am not referring to minor issues, like incorrect paperwork, vacation requests, interpersonal conflicts. You can take these kind of minor issues to HR at almost any time with very little fear of reprisal or retaliation. Number four, I'm licensed to practice law in California, but this video is for everyone across the country, as the information I give is definitely applicable anywhere. However, you should not take this video as legal advice. Internet videos, no matter how awesome, are not legal advice. If you need advice about a situation, you gotta find a lawyer in your state, and give them a call. Number five, and with that said, most employment lawyers are not gonna be able to help you if you're just looking for free advice on how to complain at work. It takes hours to properly evaluate a situation, and lawyers simply do not have enough time in the day to help the incredible number of people demanding answers from our services. Number six, Lawyers like me primarily represent people who have been unlawfully fired from their job. So if you worked in California, and you believe the reason for your termination might be unlawful, give my office a call for a free consultation. And number seven, finally, I want us to learn from each other in this video. If you've complained to HR in the past, I wanna hear about how it went in the comments section down below. If you work in human resources, I especially would like to hear your thoughts on this video as well. If you are in an employee's position, and you needed to complain to HR about something, would you follow my suggestions in this video or not? Your thoughts on this video would be greatly appreciated. With all that out of the way, let's get into it. Let's talk big picture. If you need to complain at work, you probably have three goals. Number one, you would like to stop the bad thing that is happening to you. That's pretty obvious, right? Number two, you would like to minimize the chances of being retaliated against for making the complaint in the first place. And number three, you would probably like to lay a legal foundation if, God forbid, you have to go to court in the future, because the company decides to retaliate and fire you. One of the big reasons we tell employees to complain to HR is if the company fires you after you submit a complaint, that usually adds an additional retaliation claim to your case, which is a good thing. Now, let's talk about alignment. If you recall in the last video, I told you that human resources generally does not have the power to help you, because they're subservient to the company's owners. If your complaint requires the company to take some sort of action that the company's owners don't think would be in the best interest of the organization, or what they perceive to be in the best interest of the organization, it's highly unlikely that you'll get the result that you desire. So one of your objectives from a big picture point of view is to bring your complaint into alignment with the company's goals. Complain to HR in a way that strongly suggests that the company should take action to address your issue the right way as it's in the best interest of the company to do so. With the big picture stuff firmly in our minds, the next obvious question is when should someone complain to HR despite the risks? While there is no perfect answer, as every company behaves differently and every situation is different, my general recommendation is that people should complain to HR when something unlawful is happening to them or in the workplace. More specifically though, my general advice to people that I consult with is to only complain to HR when the following three things are occurring. Number one, if you are experiencing a significant issue at work. And number two, it is seriously impacting the ability or your ability to do your job. And number three, you strongly suspect that the actions that are happening are unlawful. Well, what about violations of the company handbook? Aren't all those illegal? No. Should you report all of them? No. In my opinion, reporting minor violations of the employee handbook usually causes more trouble than it's worth. I think it's wiser to report significant violations of policies and procedures if you also suspect that those actions are unlawful. Let's say you work at a particularly bad company, and they seem to be breaking all sorts of rules. Should you complain each time you see a violation? No, don't complain all the time. You don't want HR to think that you're a whiner. If you are going to complain to HR, you need to do it with conviction. And resolve that only comes when a serious issue is it at hand. Complaints like this, and of this magnitude, by the very nature should be rare. When preparing your complaint to HR, there are five things you must do. Number one, you need to complain in writing. You need a written record, documenting that you complained and when you complained. Verbal complaints just are not good enough, because human resources, your managers, and your coworkers will absolutely lie to protect their jobs. I've seen it many times before, and I know I'll see it again. Now, they can't deny that they got your complaint when there's an email with their email address in the address box. They can try to say that they never read your email, but no jury's gonna believe that if they use their email with any regularity. After they receive your complaint, they might call you or request an in-person meeting. Go to that meeting, but make sure that you take notes while you're there, or if they don't let you take notes, wait until a meeting is over, and then go and immediately write everything down, and write down every detail, so you don't forget anything that was said. So what should your complaint say? That brings us to number two. Your complaint should focus on illegal activities. It should focus on the illegal activities that are interfering with your work. If you're being harassed due to your religion, you need to say that. If you were written up after you pointed out OSHA violations to your boss, you need to say that you think you're being retaliated against, because you pointed out safety violations. Now, while you need to focus your complaint on the illegal activities, you need to be careful how you do that. Remember the old saying, "It's not only what you say, it's how you say it." This is key. As opposed to saying, "I'm being harassed!" You can say, "I feel like I'm being treated this way, because I'm the only female in my department." As opposed to saying, "This is retaliation, because I told my boss I wouldn't go along with this price fixing scam!" You could say, "My boss seems to be writing me up after I pointed out that price fixing was probably unlawful." In my alternative complaints here, you're complaining about violations of law without being self-righteous. You're complaining about, you're complaining without antagonizing the company, and most importantly, you're complaining without threatening them. This is key. Number three, your complaint needs to be helpful and professional. Henry Ford said, "Don't find fault. Find a remedy. Anybody can complain." Your complaint should be helpful and professional. Don't just whine about all the things that are bothering you. Provide reasonable solutions to the situation. More importantly, don't threaten them with legal buzzwords that you don't understand. For example, "This is a hostile work environment!" I can't tell you how many times I've seen that three word phrase to HR in complaints. But the funny thing is, the vast majority of the people who write that, have no idea if their situation fits the legal elements of a hostile work environment. And this is where you also need to get really creative. Remember when I said that your complaint should be crafted in a way to convince HR that fixing the problem is in the best interest of the company. Here is where you need to use your inside knowledge of the company to bring your desired outcome into alignment with the company's objectives. For example, let's say your boss is a bully towards women. He regularly promotes his male buddies over the females despite a lack of qualifications. Moreover, he recently accidentally CC'd you on an email that said, "Women are not cut out for this business." Let's also say that you're a talented saleswoman, and there's another department at the company that you would like to transfer to. You know that you'll make the company a lot more money in that other department, and you already have a good rapport with a manager over there. When you complain to HR about the unlawful sexism, you should have a plan in your mind to pitch to HR the idea that you should be transferred. In your complaint email to HR, you could just have a one line sentence that says, "I think I have a solution to this situation if you're interested in chatting about it." And when HR contacts you to talk about your sexism complaint, after you tell them what's going on, you can pitch the transfer idea. Number four, your complaint should be specific and concise. Your complaint should not be long. It should be two to three paragraphs max. I'm tired of reading rambling dissertations to HR with spelling and grammatical errors. It's very helpful if you're specific and if you're concise. Number five, you need to keep a copy of your complaint. Don't email the complaint to yourself, print it out, and take it home with you. If HR responds to your email, print out the response, and take it home with you. If you get fired down the road, even if they lock you out of the computer system, you'll have a copy of the complaint. You'll know the date that you sent it. We'll know who it was sent to, and any responses. This is very helpful down the road if you have to file a lawsuit. After you send your complaint to HR, what should you expect to happen? Before I answer, I would love to hear from you. If you complain to HR in the past, tell us what happened in the comments section down below. For the most part, my comments on these videos are very constructive, and I try to respond to as many as I can. All right, so what should you expect to hear back? There are five things that you should have in the back of your head. Number one, they will probably call you in for a meeting or set up a telephonic meeting to get, they wanna get more details, and that should be fine and expected. Participate in that and take in notes. Do not secretly record the meeting, unless your state's laws allow that. For example, California does not permit secret recordings, and I made an entire video about that, and I'll leave a link, so if you want to go watch it. Number two, human resources will probably say they need to do an investigation. This doesn't mean anything for you, because 99% of the time, the investigation is rigged from the start. And investigation usually means HR is gonna find all the reasons why the company didn't break the law, conveniently ignore all the reasons that they did, and they're gonna find things that you did wrong to blame you for the situation in the first place. Think about it. Would HR ever admit to a complaining employee that the company broke the law? No, because that would be used against the company in a lawsuit, and then the HR rep would get fired. And investigation is when HR kind of goes into clean a mode, CYA, right? And since you're watching this video, you should expect nothing to come from the investigation. You should expect them to say that the law wasn't broken. You should expect to be disappointed in the investigation results. Number three, it is more likely, although not guaranteed, that they will write you up or put you on a performance improvement plan in the future. They don't usually do this immediately as it is highly suspicious to write up an employee right after they complain about something unlawful. But do not be surprised if three to six months down the road, they suddenly think that your job performance is not satisfactory. Why would they do this? Again, think about it. If you are right that the company's breaking the law, that means you are a threat to the company. They need to start building a case, a defense that you're a poor performer, so that they can either use that as justification to get rid of you, or use it against you if you ever sue the company, and say that you were a bad employee. Number four, if you were a superstar employee, or if you have rare skills that are extremely valuable to the company, HR might really step up for you, and they might push the company harder than usual to address your complaint, so that would be good. Number five, and this is the most rare, they might do the right thing. HR might be able to convince company ownership to take your complaints seriously. This is wonderful when it happens, and is a reason to celebrate. I hope you found this information to be helpful, but I have to be honest, if you've got a grievance that is so bad, you feel that you must go on record with HR, then it's possible you're not gonna wanna work there long term. It might be better for you personally and professionally to move on, and find a new employer, where you're not constantly reminded of a bad situation. Now, I would recommend that you at least start the job search process if you're thinking that you're seriously considering filing a complaint with HR. Well, I hope you found this video to be useful or informative. If you did, please consider giving the video a thumbs up. If you know somebody who's in a tough spot at work, consider sending this video to them. They will thank you for it. If you're a regular watcher in my videos, please hit this subscribe button, and that's all I got. So have a great day. (upbeat music)