Week 30: The Colleague Who Had My Back

My company has a very sophisticated system for handling human resources items -- hiring, reviews, raises, time off, etc. It's a good system, and is a lot better and faster than what we used before, but there are lots of things to learn to get the most out of it.

Recently, someone on my team moved into a new role and I needed to replace him. This meant posting the job, interviewing candidates and ultimately preparing a job offer. There were so many steps and various approvals needed, it was a bit overwhelming.

When I had the offer ready to go (or so I thought), a colleague on the recruiting team noticed that I made a big mistake. It's something that wasn't obvious to me, but he knew that it would cause a problem and that as the offer went through the various approval steps, it was likely to be questioned at the very last step.

Imagine if he hadn't reviewed it for me and noticed the problem! The offer could have gone through multiple approvals, only to be declined near the end, and then I would have to start the whole thing over again. We want to fill the position, not waste time submitting and resubmitting internal paperwork!

When people watch out for their coworkers and help them avoid a problem, that deserves a big thank you!

Photo by Philip Veater on Unsplash