A candidate for an HR director position learned that the President/CEO of a large retail chain talks to the director for several hours each day with the outcome being a "new" task list. That's an indication that one of these good things is happening:
- the business is growing and needs lots of new executives. They're growing by opening more locations or acquisitions. (But they haven't significantly added more stores this year.)
- the CEO values the HR Director's input on many strategic issues. (But this wouldn't lead to new action items daily.)
Or the daily talks are an indication of one of these unfortunate circumstances:
- there are a lot of significant personnel issues that require the CEO's attention and can't be handled at a director's or area manager's level; maybe there are a lot of employment law suits (and if so, then the HR Director is not providing the right recommendations to avoid them or the CEO is not heeding the advice).
- the HR Director is really a personal assistant. (Because of any of the other reasons)
- the HR Director isn't understanding the job and needs daily coaching and this is a waste of the CEO's time and a distraction from more important corporate issues.
- the CEO can't let go and micromanages everything (but can hardly expect to talk to each staff person extensively each day...but might be an indication if they're not growing).
- they're significantly overhauling the HR processes and policies (but probably wouldn't require daily conversations but weekly updates and review of drafts).
There may be a few more reasons. What ones have you seen or experienced?
The candidate wisely withdrew from consideration because more likely than not, this was a bad position from the aspect of having to discuss matters with the CEO everyday.
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