Halloween HR nightmares

It’s that spooky time of year where we all dress up and pretend to be demons and ghouls in order to try and scare each other until we can no longer sleep at night. But for those that work in HR, the things that go bump in the night are nothing when compared to the list of HR horrors that can be found below…

With Halloween just around the corner, Activ Absence software has revealed a list of top ten HR horror stories shared by HR professionals who attended this year’s CIPD HR Software and Recruitment Show in June.

Topping the list of horrors was a situation that no employee wants to hear from their HR team – that they have lost everyone’s annual leave request forms. In this case the HR manager had to rely on people’s honesty to tell them how much holiday they had taken and what had been approved for the future.

Another horror story involved a HR manager who approved so many leave requests on the same day that the office was empty.

HR professionals also revealed some of the poor excuses that their employees came up with when they rang in sick. One had to deal with an employee who said they were off work as their three alarms hadn’t gone off. Another employee blamed not turning up for an interview because they forgot what day of the week it was.

Here are the top ten stories:

1. Losing everyone’s annual leave request forms for the entire company.
2. Approving too many leave requests on the same day resulting in an empty office.
3. Someone vomiting at the start of an interview.
4. A candidate turning up to an interview on the 4th floor who was very scared of heights. They ended up crawling on the floor through the office.
5. A man bringing his entire family into the interview room for moral support.
6. A text sent to an employee telling them they are redundant.
7. Someone saying they had a flying lesson but were snap-chatting on a stag do.
8. A candidate’s skirt caught fire during an interview from sitting near a faulty heater.
9. Employee sickness absence excuse: My three alarm clocks didn’t go off.
10. Asking a candidate why they didn’t turn up for an interview and getting the reply: “I forgot what day of the week it was.”

Adrian Lewis, director at Activ Absence, said: “Some of the stories HR can tell you are funny, but others have serious consequences. Mistakes cost companies money. Losing annual leave request forms could result in people being given too much paid holiday. Equally, the mismanagement of annual leave so no one is in the office would cost a days’ worth of business and could result in lost contracts or missing important deadlines.”