Ask the Expert: In bed with the manager

Q. Our organisation had a vacancy for a senior HR person and got a search firm in the nearest large city to fill it temporarily. The search firm introduced one best candidate - well known to them - who happened to be having a close personal relationship with the general manager.

The person was appointed in a temporary capacity, moved to town and is living with the GM. The vacancy technically continues, although the temporary appointment seems to have made few moves to find a successor.

Aside from the propriety of the search process, the temporary HR manager is not performing well. They may have had good skills in their prior role, but not in managing a complex professional organisation. The HR manager's style is quite aggressive and abrasive, and not a good fit to the culture of the organisation. They do not manage privacy or confidentiality issues well; a lot of people believe that what they say to one (GM or HR) will then be passed on to the other. The HR manager seems to spend most of the time "performance managing" staff out of the organisation for the GM. This now means that problems that would normally be taken to HR or the GM are now not going anywhere. We are increasingly frustrated. What can we do?

A. Although having a relationship between two senior managers may be problematic in terms of managing disagreements or complaints, there is nothing inherently wrong in this appointment, if they really are the best person for the job, which you seem to be suggesting - rather strongly - is not the case.

If the GM was also the company owner, then there would be little that you could do, they could hire who they like and you would have little recourse other than trying to ensure any "performance managing" was fair and reasonable.

That such an elaborate "search" was used to place the GM's lover in the job suggests that this is not the case; and the situation you describe would probably be seen by the owners or board as a clear conflict of interest and possible misconduct on the part of the GM. If you are a public sector organisation, this might also breach the organisation's duty to be a "good employer".

The GM should have declared a conflict of interest and probably not retained the services of this particular firm, given the "connection".

A search firm that can only find one candidate for a general HR post, and without external advertising, sounds pretty suspect as well.

You may not be able to discuss this with the GM (although if there is a group of you, that is still an option), but perhaps your group can bring this to the attention of senior management above the GM, either in the HRM area or in general management (or perhaps both).

You can all try to use your networks to identify other potential HR managers and see if you can get them to apply. This may allow you to determine if the "temporary" HR person is blocking other appointments; perhaps they really are only there to help out while a permanent appointment is identified.