Can I file a complaint with HR against a coworker’s promotion? [closed]

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I work as a Senior Software Engineer on my team, and I have a coworker who was recently promoted to the same level, but she has nowhere near the qualifications for the position, she lies regularly, and she creates obstacles to getting the work done. Would it be appropriate for me to file a complaint with Human Resources?

To give more context, this woman was previously the Team Lead for our group. Problems began one month after she was hired. She was demoted to a standard developer in less than a year by our director. Our director has since left the company. It seems like there was some disorganization in our corporate systems related to employee titles, and to resolve it they made her title Senior Software Engineer, the same as my own, which is 2 levels higher than her previous role. I complained to current management, and I get a sense that they are not doing much to follow up on it.

To summarize, problems experienced include the following:

• Lack of technical knowledge; the only development work she has performed prior to this job is writing queries. She is dependent on others to help her get her own work done.
• Bad decisions due to a lack of technical knowledge, that would result in major damage or setbacks to our systems. I have had to run interference with management to have these decisions undone.
• No knowledge of change control prior to coming to this position. I had to explain to her what a work ticketing system was multiple times, as she had never heard of one before, despite supposedly having 20 years of development experience.
• Belligerence when it comes to implementing change control for her own projects. I have to file complaints with management to get her to comply with existing standards.
• Lack of initiative to learn new technologies or implement process improvement, when this is demanded of a Senior Software Engineer position.
• She copies off of others’ work and calls it her own.
• She does not take responsibility for her own errors and blames others.
• She has deleted audit trails in Production to cover up her mistakes. Documentation was filed with management regarding this event.
• She tries to steal my projects by hijacking communications with clients. As a result, management has told her not to communicate with customers without first getting their approval.
• She tells new staff that she is in charge of certain areas, such as design, which management has never authorized.
• She lies about my work in meetings, causing other team members to believe her, then I have to take time in follow-up meetings to dismantle her lies.
• I cannot effectively give her a standard code review, because any feedback to tell her to improve will result in her raising her voice and going off on people. She has done this to other staff as well.
• She creates barriers for implementing team-wide design, where her arguments have no technical merit. Please note that I am not talking about the standard debates that happen with design review, that have technical justification.
• The dysfunction is so great that it becomes a fight just to get the team to operate on existing standards and prevents us from moving forward with innovation.

All of this has been communicated to management, but she was still given the higher title. The quality of work that she performs is about 3 levels below her current title, 1 level below the standard developer title she was demoted to previously, so there is a major difference.

The new title raises concerns in several areas:

• Is she getting paid the same amount as I am, for performing much less or bad work?
• Based on the title, it communicates to team members and external staff that she would be authorized to engage in various work that she should not be trusted with.
• She is supposed to be mentoring other junior and senior staff on appropriate processes, and she has difficulty getting her own work done.

This is a problem that I am really tired of dealing with, and it has been going on for over a year now. Would it be appropriate for me to file a complaint with Human Resources, to address the behaviors and inappropriate title change, or would it be a waste of time?

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks.

manpreet 2 years ago

I don't know that you will gain much by going to HR with this.
Likely something is going on that you aren't aware of, maybe she is really good at schmoozing, maybe it is something really stupid like the company thinking it would look good to have another (a first?) female in that role(1), maybe something else.

Based on what you've said, she's already targeting you.
Don't step in front of a bus by taking it to HR they will likely discuss your concerns with her. Diffuse what you can, but only stuff related to you. Document everything in emails to your boss - only the facts... like that she deleted audit records. (Print and keep copies at home)

Since you aren't her boss you should step back a bit on items that don't involve you so she can have enough rope to hang herself again (which she obviously did in the mind of your former director).

Whoever promoted her to this position will likely be reluctant to demote her because it would look bad on them. What you'll likely see if this is the case is that the title is never taken from her, but her duties become more and more restricted.

(1) One piece of evidence for this is that "management has told her not to communicate with customers without first getting their approval". You really shouldn't have to tell a senior person that.