Joe, the head of Europe, was a recent new hire from outside the company. As a newcomer, Joe was not familiar with internal politics. This company was especially full of intricacy and taboo zones. He was an American who also speaks German and already significant senior experience at other companies. As Tuuli was pushed away and Linda finally got the position of the Head of HR Europe, Joe was managing the region. It was important for Linda to develop a strategy on how to present herself to this new boss in the region.
“I was just working hard in my previous region, just focusing on my work and didn’t think about anything else. And all of sudden, Rachel contacted me and asked me to take this position over the phone. Of course, Tuuli was offered a good position in another company and left, I’ve heard. I have experience in the Head of Regional HR in other regions but of course, the Europe Region is more complex. Still, Rachel told me to take this offer; she believes I can perform at this role very well. I am here to fulfill your needs in terms of HR and even in some areas Tuuli was not able to serve.”
She presented herself as innocently as possible, hiding her ambition and shrewdness. The truth was, Linda even set Tuuli up to leave, by sharing “secret stories” about Tuuli with Rachel, such as Tuuli bad mouthing about Rachel behind her back. Sooner or later, Rachel became a lot more aggressive to Tuuli, manipulated by Linda’s lies. As the next step, Linda made some headhunters to contact Tuuli at the office phone and by company email address, giving them Tuuli’s personal information. After confirming they contacted Tuuli, Linda whispered to Rachel that Tuuli was actually looking for external opportunities, as she was fed up with working for Rachel. As the Head of IT with superuser access to the systems, Rachel confirmed “Tuuli’s betrayal story” reported by Linda was real. Feeling the situation was getting worse for her, Tuuli started focusing her effort on finding a new job, anywhere in Europe, answering those calls from different agencies. This way, Linda’s “self-fulfilling prophecy” worked; by predicting that Tuuli was to leave in front of her boss, she made this prediction come true. With Linda, it was instant to create distrust between the two parties and move people to certain directions, leveraging anger.
Linda developed her strategy against Joe carefully. He was known for his direct and strict style. Linda should pretend to respect him and obey him, while showing him Linda could guide him as an advisor of the do’s and don’ts at this company. Don’t forget to give him a quick snap sometimes to show that Linda was backed-up by Rachel, the Queen in the US; Joe should also respect Linda not to go over the lines. Once she earned Joe’s trust, the rest would become super easy: Linda could do anything dodgy and evil behind the scenes, not being noticed. That’s the success pattern of a manipulator over a target.
To Linda’s excitement, Joe decided to make the drastic head-count reduction to meet the target of profit increase that he had promised to Ben when he was hired. Of course, it was not a coincidence that Joe made this decision just after Linda’s arrival as the HR Head. When Joe was working with external consultants to formulate his key management strategy, Linda cleverly pointed out that the company had a significant number of unnecessary personnel in Switzerland. The redundant personnel with higher salaries than in other countries were impacting the cost structure. By reducing the number of employees in the Swiss office, and moving operational tasks to other countries with lower wages, costs could be significantly reduced without affecting the company’s performance. Joe jumped on this suggestion, believing that this was a good thing for the company and for himself.
Linda looked at Joe and nodded confidently at the cost-cutting target Joe had put forth. “Leave it to me, Joe. Indeed, there are a lot of redundant positions in this office, and I wonder why Tuuli couldn’t see to it – efficiency in staff allocation. For example, there is a large Key Account Management function located here but this is totally redundant, I am sorry to point out. Interestingly this department is led by a Finnish person, who has been in the company for about 20 years. His salary is definitely overstated. I am afraid Tuuli was not able to make the right decision due to a personal attachment she had to this person. It’s time to make the right change to keep the only necessary and appropriate functions in Switzerland. Let’s implement the cost-cutting immediately and show Ben your impact. Rationalizing is a blessing you can bring to this company. I’m sorry for the people laid off, and it really causes strong pains in my heart. I should be crying a lot when I implement this strategic action, thinking of each person’s face – I feel every employee is like my own family. But this is a necessary pain for our future. Eventually everybody will understand it. Be assured, I will make sure to keep the good employees we need.” Then Linda left the meeting to her office, locked the door and started working on the plan – who to go.
As was always the case, Linda was hiding her true intention behind this “strategic HR” suggestion she made to Joe. Linda was eager to fire a lot of Linda’s potential enemies, namely, promising non-German female employees who surpassed Linda’s career level, or would go up in the near future. Linda was careful not to be seen through that Linda herself was the one who wanted to fire those women. On the other hand, it would be perfectly legitimate to terminate those women under the guise of a company order. There were also some German women Linda would like to eliminate, but she was afraid that would damage the German community’s support for Linda, if she did that. Also, non-German male employees who were not particularly close to Linda were to be eliminated, that is, normal or good employees with French, Finnish, Italian, Swiss and misc. other nationalities. If they are poor performers, they don’t matter to her as they won’t be any threat for Linda. But promising good male employees with other nationalities would be a threat to her and it was better to remove them. Linda took advantage of the fact that it’s easy to fire employees in Switzerland, targeting individuals. Unlike in other countries, permanent employees with long tenure can be easily fired with some superficially reasonable explanation under the Swiss laws. Positions becoming redundant by company restructuring would be the template reason in this scenario; it’s not necessary to have justification for individual cases. After terminating the targeted mass as the first step, Linda could still save individual German males whom she would like to keep, by offering new contracts for newly created positions in Switzerland. By contrast, Linda would simply let go all the women affected by restructuring, saying that there were no other positions available for them here, although she kindly tried to find something for them.
In fact, Joe was never informed of how the lay-off targets were chosen. Somehow, before he knew it, the decision on which employees to lay off had been made and implemented. Curiously, women in relatively low positions and were also doing practical work in the Swiss office were terminated, while those with high salaries, who were only in high positions and far from practical work, were not affected. Furthermore, in terms of nationalities, the overwhelming majority of those to be laid off were Italians, French, Finns, Swiss, and people from outside the EU, while Germans, who should have been more numerous, were almost completely unaffected. Furthermore, those Germans with needlessly high salaries were often able to survive with other positions made available, even if their previous contracts were terminated. As a result, In spite of Linda’s confident promise, the cost-saving effect from the massive personnel reduction was questionable, since the employees in less-practical “management” positions remained while those who were working on actual tasks were dismissed.
Joe had his doubts about the fact that the dismissals were carried out before any decision was made as to who would be sacrificed at a meeting with him. It was strange that he was never informed of who was to be terminated and on which criteria. Joe questioned Linda, asking, “Linda, why didn’t you inform me exactly what criteria you were using to terminate people? HR should make proposals and simulations and I should be the one to decide which way to go. Why did you go ahead all by yourself?”
Hearing Joe’s question, Linda changed her facial expression suddenly and stared at Joe with fierce anger. This was Linda’s expression Joe had never seen before and he was hit by shock. Linda said in a firm tone, “Everything was done in due process. Rachel and I had several meetings on this as this is strictly HR confidential matter, and I received her approval on the final proposal for the headcount reduction. The dismissal selection was based solely on the facts with a detailed personnel evaluation during the employment period on top of the availability of their future positions in the Swiss office. We made the exact calculations, including their nominal salaries and other relevant costs to reach our target cost savings. On top, Rachel got an approval from the CEO, Ben, if you doubt it.”
Joe fell silent, and Linda went on further. “Joe, you know too little about the HR decision-making process at this company. Even the European General Manager is not allowed in here. I know you are probably wondering why the well-positioned, well-paid people are left untouched in contrast to typical headcount reduction in other companies, but they are in a sanctuary. These people have important information about the company, especially about Ben, and they cannot be fired. If you think they should also get fired against the CEO’s protection, I will report this to Rachel and bring this to Ben’s attention. What you are trying to do is interfere with the HR Department. This is nothing more than micromanagement and an attempt to intervene in a personnel matter under Rachel. Even if you are a Senior Vice President, this cannot be overlooked.”
Of course, this was a total bluff. In fact, Linda had reported to Rachel which employees to terminate and why, but the data on each employee was often a fabrication. Star performer female employees were made to look like they had poor evaluations over the past few years. It was to put them in the category of “termination due to poor performance”. In addition, the selection criteria for termination recommendation were completely bogus – Linda took a well selected sample of non-Germans without good protection, regardless of their performance. The most important fact was that these fabricated documents were not brought to Joe’s review. Empty-head Rachel didn’t bother to check the data Linda presented, no matter who it was. She was already busy with IT and HR double assignments in the global HQ in the US. Rachel trusted Linda and delegated all HR matters in Europe to her.
Linda had already calculated that Joe would not want to get into trouble with Rachel. As a means for taming Joe, Linda made him aware of the special relationship between Ben and Rachel under the disguise of friendly advice to Joe, who was not familiar with the company’s political landscape. She did this all verbally, of course, so as not to leave any evidence. With a good-nature look on her face, Linda told Joe, “I’m sharing this information specially with you, as I would like to succeed in the company. Keep it to yourself. Don’t tell anyone that you heard it from me. It could get us both in trouble.”
Joe flinched at being told that she would report this to Rachel. Linda gave him the final stab. “You know how much Ben trusts Rachel, Joe.” Joe had no words to reply. Bewildered, Joe said, “I didn’t mean it that way. I just wanted you to report the details as it was an important decision. But all clear. There’s no need to report to Rachel.” Joe ended the conversation quickly.
Linda grinned and thought. “Men are so easy. It was a bit of a close call this time but I managed to pull it off. After all, this company has some serious bombshells, the corruption of the CEO, Ben. The higher up you are in the company, the more sensitive you are to this landmine. I can use this landmine for protecting myself and they shouldn’t invade into my domain. If I was on the verge of being caught, I could just remind them of the black landmine waiting for them to blow up their career, if they put their finger on my secret dealings. They would all run away for cover. Sweet.”
Although Linda managed to escape from Joe’s question, the apparently unfair dismissal patterns raised suspicions among some employees. A female employee in the Finance Department expressed a concern vocally. She asked why the layoffs were carried out so inefficiently, affecting workers with lower salaries contrary to common practice. Indeed, in her extreme thrills and excitements, Linda went a little overboard. Like a predator in hot pursuit of its prey, she was tempted to step into the danger zone, losing overview. Although Linda’s greedy nature as a psychopath was well concealed, there were a few people in the company who came to realize something fishy and horrible in Linda’s HR practices. Linda was acutely aware of the whispers and suspicions directed at her. “Hm, you noisy little rats. I’m going to have to do another sweep.”
This story is fictitious and is not based on any real persons or organizations. Copyright: Kunoichi4You 2024
Psychopath in the Next Office 