Geek Goddess

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Happy birthday, geek goddess!

Just saw this forum post from you about a month ago:
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The girl (and I say girl deliberately, rather than woman) who is the HR 'department' is barely literate. She occasionally prepares letters that go out to all employees regarding benefits or related issues. While there are no glaring errors, the structure and syntax indicate someone with a grade-school writing level.

The information is frequently so unclear that people need to ask more questions. I looked at the most recently letter, and sent her an email that asked 'from your memo, I am unable to tell if I need to re-enroll my son or merely provided proof of his college attendance for the next semester."

The response? "Nothing." That was the response - the word "nothing." The VP sent a note and asked about how his college children were covered, and his wife's enrollment (she is covered under her own employer), and the answer was "it's taken care of." I am tenacious enought that I will find her and bulldog her into a better answer, but three-fourths of our employees work in field locations and don't have ready access to a computer or phone during normal business hours.

She also 'forgets' to include people's bonuses on their checks, for several pay periods.

Our executives' bonuses and other compensation are handled by this person, as well, so she knows everything about everyone. (Many companies outsource at least the executive pay checks for this reason).

She doesn't need to be working here. However, her mother is the head accountant and has a rep as the company bitch, and the comptroller is so clueless about his job that he relies on her to do everything. So, we can't fire DumbAss because Mom might get mad and quit, or at least make everyone's life miserable. And DumbAss is now married to IT Dude (our one and only) who has complete and totally control over all passwords, corporate security, servers, etc. We don't have a rule against nepotism, per se, but our new CFO is pulling his hair out (what remains) trying to figure out how to resolve all this.

And Comptroller told DumbAss she could now work at home "so she wouldn't have to pay child care." Excuse me? She's the ONLY person in the company to handle payroll as well as be the interface for ALL employees on their checks, benefits, insurance problems, tax forms, etc.?, and she doesn't even show up at the office for weeks at a time. Like RIGHT she's working 8 hours at home.
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Fairly simple solution is for the boss to slowly replace the functions in the business with new people, until they are phased out completely.

The linch-pin is the head accountant. She needs to be "promoted sideways", to a job where she no longer has control of daily operations. A "board position' often suffices for this. As a board member, she should not be allowed operational control of the business - that's very poor business practice.

Another approach is a promotion to a "business opportunities research" position. This involves a job where she has to travel all sorts of places doing "research" - lots of long, boring accountancy conferences in obscure places will suffice. She will be spending so much time in planes and hotels and meetings that she will be effectively out of the office until she retires or finds another job.

The next thing would be to remove the payroll operation (but not in name) from DumbAss. Bring on board a new "Payroll Officer" in the office, even part-time. While this person can be notionally responsible to DumbAss, if DA is at home, newbie will need an "on-site supervisor"...best candidate for that is the CFO. Start transferring bits and pieces of DA's role to the newbie...a bit more each month. Make sure newbie, not DA, does the new payroll stuff, and also does the fixes to the existing payroll problems. Then DA's role can be gradually minimised, perhaps made part-time, and finally "economised" out of existence.

Alternatively, outsource payroll to a bureau (as an experiment in cost-saving perhaps?), and drop her like a hot rock.

IT Nerd can be dealt with easily enough. Get in a contractor to "evaluate" the IT operation with a view to "optimising and upgrading". You want the contractor to look to recommend outsourcing the IT (even if you have no intention of doing it). Nerd will have to disgorge a lot of his management info, or be shown to be actively hindering a corporate project and goals. If the former, organise with the contractor to recommend a solution that puts all IT management control in the hands of new (tame) IT staff - you can then take over IT and reduce Nerd's influence. If the latter, discipline and/or firing may follow on swift wings!

I have seen this sort of stuff done. So I have learned to be an evil bastard.

Good luck!