Hi Phil

You’ve had a good look at everything and everywhere you turn, there is something wrong. You can’t fix some things without cooperation, which you don’t have. And yet, there is an understanding that things need changed or you wouldn’t have been recruited. Do you know who was behind that decision and what things they believe need changing?

You can’t fix everything at once. What you need is to work out what you can affect and then decide what order to take things in. A big part of deciding the order will be what the organisation wants you to do and what resource you can call on, not just your assessment of risk, as that doesn’t bother them. In spite of all the constraints, you should be able to get some successes behind you.

What is the attitude of the two so-called HR staff? Do they have any interest in acquiring some skills? what do they do at the moment? If you are really stuck with them, they both must have some skills you can use.

I have more questions than answers at the moment but essentially, you need to break this down into manageable parts.

Hi Phil

Easier said than done, well I know, but you must, for the sake of your own wellbeing, try to distance yourself from all this.

Would try to eat the elephant of all that's wrong one very small portion at a time and meantime keep taking the salary whilst nibbling slowly and calmly but at same time working hard on your escape package.

Finding someone that the CEO might take more notice of and priming them accordingly might be worth a try, too: protest too much on your own and you'll risk being branded by them as a whinger / thorn in their flesh.

In reply to David:

(crossed with Elizabeth's response / further most apt suggestions)

In reply to Elizabeth Divver:

Agree with Elizabeth's thinking.

For me this is either a disaster or an opportunity. Given those choices how you react will determine which it is. I would choice opportunity and given that anything you do will be a step forward you have an amazing chance to try some things out, to build your reputation and to influence the CEO around what great HR can achieve. It won't be easy or quick but it will be great development and frankly whats the alternative?

In reply to Elizabeth Divver:

Thank you Elizabeth, in answer to your questions, the CEO actually took me on, but what he described in the interview is not what he is now asking me to do. The two HR staff are only interested in payroll related things, have no interest in HR at all and are not open to learning: to give you a completely honest picture, we have 120 staff, 100 are weekly paid and the other 20 are monthly, I know from experience that this sort of payroll takes a maximum of one person 2 days a week to process, but for some reason there are one and a half full time employee's working on it, the majority of the time they both spend on the internet, not doing anything work related, when I questioned this I was shouted down by the CEO and told the work they were doing was important, they actually do nothing though! Any HR related tasks are just automatically given to me, on the occasions I have tried to speak to the CEO he just seems agitated and doesn't give any sort of indication of what he wants me to do, again, being brutally honest, he appears to be unbalanced and I have witnessed him shouting at people and using grossly inappropriate language towards employee's. The workforce is 80% EU nationals and the CEO is also from another European country, I have been told on several occasions that 'they don't know they have any rights and that's how it should be' so I have also witnessed people being dismissed on the spot for no good reason, and they regularly, just tell people they are no longer needed. I am starting to think I should just come in, get paid, and do nothing (apart from job search), no-one is watching, or expecting anything from me, and trying to rectify anything is just annoying. I just feel like am 'deskilling' at a very fast rate. Why do places have HR departments just as a tick box (the most worrying thing is we recently gained Tier 2 sponsorship status, which was manipulated to gain, I have not mentioned this as it was kept away from me (I suspect the reason for this is that I would have picked up on the false information they were using) thankfully, my name is not on the sponsorship document

Hi Phil

Firstly I would take a step back, a deep breath and count to 10. As others have said it's a far from ideal set they seem to have gotten themselves into, but they were at least a tiny bit honest with you at interview - the HR department does indeed an overhaul, albeit a much bigger one than what they were probably prepared to put across from the sounds of things.

You say the two current "HR" team members aren't interested in HR. Could this be because they don't quite know where to start themselves and the department has been left to get itself in such a pickle and by the sounds of things had no support along the way that they've reached the "Whats the point stage". Yes, they don't have a background in HR, but really not many us do at first, we learn along the way because someone gives us the chance to do so. You've got a team of what I would like to think are 2 intelligent people (one is finance based and one has a PhD - you don't get those without some brains!) - look at what skills they have and try to engage them into working with you by playing to their skills.

Perhaps have a talk with the person with an accounts background and get them to put together some figures on the costs of not conducting RTW checks/employing people illegally, the cost of tribunal claims for bullying and harassment and such like. Work with the business studies student to start updating processes/policies explain the importance of them to them in a business context. If they've just been dropped into the role by the CEO and they felt they couldn't say no then they're probably feeling out of their depth as well.

Make a list of what needs to be done - break it down into bitesize chunks with them. Maybe do this over lunch or coffee away from the office. You may find some barriers come down and they open up - people say more away from the office as the walls don't have ears.

But most importantly don't try to tackle all of it alone, and all in one go. Don't take work home with you and don't stay late if it's not 100% necessary. Do what you can in your 8 hours, take your breaks, step away from something and work on something else if you're hitting a road block that can't be solved immediately. Rome wasn't built in a day after all!