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The Complaint That Couldn’t Wait
How do you deal with sensitive employee complaints, especially when it directly involves CXOs? The situation can get real murky, real fast. Well, you get a ringside view to how Kelly navigates this deftly in S1E3 of Behind HR Lines.
If you’re new here, welcome! Behind HR Lines is a dramatized composite of the messy, political, emotionally loaded reality of running the People function - narrated from the lens of Kelly Cross, Chief People Officer, LumaCore Labs.
Previously on Behind HR Lines:
Kelly spent S1E1 cleaning up the RTO chaos Daniel Mercury, CEO unleashed. She froze Slack before it spiraled, built an exception framework from nothing, aligned leadership, and bought the org a week it desperately needed. Read here.
S1E2 pushed her straight into calibrations, where Jessica, CRO tried to stack the deck. Kelly dragged the process back to evidence, redistributed the ratings, and left the room with a system that finally resembled fairness. Read here.
The Situation
It started with a folder in her trusted HRBP, Maya’s hands and a look that said you’re not going to like this. “Retaliation case. Tom Bennett. Sales. Mid-level manager under Jessica.”
Kelly groaned softly. “Of course it’s Sales. What’s the story?”
“He says his rating dropped after he pushed back in calibration - claims Jessica favored Raj’s team and that she punished him for calling it out.”
Kelly turned her chair toward the window, staring at the morning haze over downtown. “Was that the calibration you ran?”
“Yeah,” Maya said. “You were in Engineering that day. It got… ugly. Jessica was going to give Raj’s team three Exceeds in a row, and Tom finally snapped. He said it out loud - favoritism. You could feel the air shift.”
“And she didn’t like being called out.”
“Not even a little. She went cold. Quiet. And then, apparently, she changed his rating two days later.”
Maya handed over the intake printout. “Filed last night. Portal submission. He attached the Zoom transcript.”
Kelly rubbed her temples. “People used to gossip. Now they export evidence.”
The Spiral
By mid-morning, Samir, LumaCore’s Chief Legal Officer, had joined them. He looked as he always did in these meetings, calm, curious, faintly annoyed that the law had to get involved in human behavior again.
He scanned the intake. “Alright. He’s alleging that his manager retaliated after he accused her of bias. We’ll need to confirm timing and tone. When did calibration happen?”
“Last Tuesday,” Maya said. “She changed his rating Thursday.”
Samir looked up. “That’s fast enough to look intentional. Doesn’t mean it was.”
Kelly said, “If Jessica felt challenged in front of her own managers, she’d want to reassert control. But the two events might not be linked - I agree that it does look bad though optics wise.”
Maya shifted. “You think she did it out of spite?”
“I think she did what she always does, defended her narrative. Whether that counts as retaliation depends on the paper trail.”
Maya would interview Tom and the other managers who were in the room. Kelly would handle Jessica. Samir would keep Daniel out of it until there was something Daniel couldn’t ignore.
“Ground rule,” Kelly said. “We move slow, we stay clean, no one improvises.”
“So, business as usual?” Samir smirked.
The Pivot
Maya's interview. Tuesday afternoon.
Tom arrived early, sat down stiff, hands clasped. “I’m not trying to make this a big deal,” he started. “But it’s not right.”
Maya smiled compassionately, “Tell me what happened.”
“She was defending Raj again. I said it wasn’t fair. She said I was being difficult. Next thing I know, my rating’s changed. No conversation. Just changed.”
“Did she explain why?”
“She said consistency across teams. But that doesn’t track. Raj’s team missed pipeline targets in Q2. Mine hit them.”
“Do you have that documented?”
He hesitated. “Not all of it. We talked about it in 1:1s. I’m yet to update Salesforce.”
Maya nodded. “Okay. We’ll check the numbers.”
Tom leaned back, frustration rising. “It’s not even the rating. It’s the message. You speak up once and suddenly you’re a problem.”
Maya wrote that down and ended the interview saying “Thanks, Tom. We are taking this seriously and looking into it.”
Kelly's interview. Wednesday morning.
Jessica was pacing when Kelly walked in. No coffee, no smile. Just that quiet, brittle energy of someone ready to defend herself before she’s even accused.
“Let me guess,” she said. “Tom filed something.”
“Formal complaint,” Kelly replied. “Retaliation.”
Jessica laughed under her breath. “Look, I adjusted his rating because he inflated his team’s numbers. I checked the data myself. I meant to update the notes. I got buried.”
“Did you send him a written explanation?”
“No. I told him in person. He knows.”
“Jessica,” Kelly said quietly, “I believe you. But right now, all we have is your word and his word. And one of those words came with a timestamp.”
Jessica dropped into her chair. “He embarrassed me in front of my team. You weren’t there. It was insubordination. It’s not related, but I’m not going to stand this behavior.”
“Is that why you changed Tom’s rating?”
Jessica looked livid, “Whose side are you on? I just told you it had nothing to do with it.”
“I’m not on anybody’s side. I’m trying to keep you out of a deposition and I’m trying to uncover the truth.”
Jessica rubbed her forehead. “Daniel’s going to hear about this.”
“Eventually,” Kelly said. “That should be the least of your worries.”
The Pattern
An adverse reaction is not always retaliation or revenge. Sometimes it’s just bad timing and lack of documentation.
Every HR leader needs three questions in their head before a case like this hits the inbox:
- Did the conflict come before the decision?
- Is the decision consistent with others at the same level?
- Is there evidence that isn’t written by memory?
The Fallout
By early the next week, the other interviews were done. No smoking gun. No policy breach.
Just a manager who moved too fast after being called out, and a subordinate who knew exactly how that timing would look.
Samir read through the findings. “No legal exposure. But you’ve got a perception wildfire waiting to start.”
Kelly nodded. “The numbers tilt the case in Jessica’s favor but she receives documentation training. I will work with both of them this quarter because performance will suffer otherwise.”
Before closing, they added one more safeguard, a clean memo for the file.It recorded the timeline, confirmed no deviation from policy, and noted that both sides were heard and acknowledged in writing.
Maya logged acknowledgment receipts and sent the summary to Legal for recordkeeping.
Kelly reviewed everything twice before signing off.
If this ever resurfaced as a formal complaint, the company would have a defensible record, not a memory war.
“What about Tom?” Samir asked.
“Follow-up meeting. We explain transparently how we conducted the investigation, confirm consistency, and log the closure. He has already agreed that the numbers were inflated.”
Maya hesitated. “That’s not going to make him feel better.”
“But it’ll make him feel heard. That’s as close as we get to closure.” Kelly signed off.
The Pattern Behind the Episode
It’s easy to jump to conclusions, but HR leaders need to remain impartial to uncover the truth. Retaliation cases rarely collapse into clean villains or clean facts. Timing becomes intent. Silence becomes evidence. And perception becomes its own kind of truth.
The only real guardrail is sequence. Document before deciding. Explain before adjusting. Create a record before anyone needs it. Perceived fairness trumps fairness in most cases.
Kelly’s Corner
Kelly Recommends: This isn't an ad or a sponsorship. We ask HR leaders in our network if they might want to recommend any platform they can personally vouch for. The overwhelming response was that there’s no need for a tool for workplace investigations - these are infrequent cases that can be tackled well on docs and spreadsheets.
Dear Kelly: You’ve vented to a friend. You’ve laughed with your team. Now tell Kelly. Dear Kelly is collecting the real-world HR stories that deserve to be told - the messy, painfully familiar ones. Drop yours here. Your story might even inspire the next edition.
Just When Things Were Settling Down…
On Friday evening, Maya appeared at Kelly’s desk, her voice low enough to signal trouble.
“You should hear what’s going around,” she said. “People are saying the ones rated ‘1’ in calibration are already being lined up for layoffs.”
“Apparently someone posted about it on Blind last night. It’s spreading fast.”
Kelly leaned back in her chair, staring past the monitor. “Let me guess - anonymous post, thirty comments, half of them saying ‘sources confirm."
“Pretty much. Should we do something?”
Kelly closed her laptop. “We have to. Rumors always move faster than the truth.”
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