When HR Comes Back to Haunt You: Three Workplace Horror Stories

Every workplace has its ghosts. Not the rattling-chains kind, but the kind that lurk quietly in the background until, one day, they come back to bite.

In HR, these “hauntings” often start as small oversights - an outdated policy left on the shelf, a missed performance conversation, a failure to document a tricky situation.

Left unresolved, they don’t disappear; they fester, grow, and return at the worst possible moment.

This Halloween, rather than hiding from what’s lurking in the shadows, we’re shining a torch on the most common HR “hauntings” that can spook an organisation. From skeletons in the filing cabinet to ghosted employees, here are the issues that have a habit of coming back to life — and what you can do to keep them firmly in the past.

Here are three short, spine-tingling workplace horror stories to keep you awake at night…

1. The Filing

Jack had been working at the organisation for nearly a year when he realised something chilling: he had never actually signed a contract.

At first, he brushed it off — surely it was just lost in the system. But when he asked HR, they searched every drawer, every file, every drive. Nothing. It was as though his contract had never existed.

Determined to find answers, Jack searched the office himself. The filing cabinet sat in the corner, its drawers yawning open like hungry mouths, but the papers he needed had vanished into thin air. He assumed they were lost in SharePoint after the Great Migration of 2023, but they weren’t there either.

Old contracts from decades ago appeared in the folders, yellowing and brittle, but the current contracts — the ones that mattered — were gone.

Colleagues whispered of others who had gone looking for missing contracts. They too had found nothing but cobwebs and dust. And when payroll errors left Jack underpaid for two months, he had no contract to prove his salary, no recourse to correct the mistake.

Frustrated and unsupported, he raised a grievance. It was mishandled, and feeling trapped, he resigned. But the horror didn’t end there. Jack took legal action, exposing systemic failings in HR processes and leaving management scrambling to explain how such a basic oversight had been allowed to persist.

Lesson learned: What you fail to record doesn’t disappear — it waits to haunt you. Incomplete contracts and missing documents can lead to confusion, disputes, and legal action. Proper record-keeping, clear ownership, and regular audits are essential to protect employees, managers, and the organisation.

2. The Silence of the Feedback

Clarice dreaded her annual review. She sat nervously across from her manager, who arrived empty-handed.

“Hello Clarice. I’m rather busy today but just to say, keep up the good work,” he muttered before swiftly leaving.

That was it. No recognition of her achievements, no areas for growth, no guidance for the months ahead. The silence felt worse than criticism.

Six weeks later, the silence broke. Clarice was summoned to meet a senior manager. Their words were cold: her performance was an issue, she hadn’t improved, and if things didn’t change, there would be consequences.

Clarice was stunned. How could she improve what she had never been told was wrong? She had assumed she was safe in the silence, but the truth had been buried until it was too late. Overwhelmed, she left the organisation. Her manager sighed with relief — but the real horror was still to come: a claim for constructive dismissal.

Lesson learned: Silence isn’t golden; it’s dangerous. Without clear, honest, and documented feedback, problems fester in the shadows and return to haunt the organisation. Regular check-ins and open dialogue are your best defence.

3. Missed Sense (A Workplace Horror Story)

Deep in the HR cupboard, there was a dusty binder no one dared to touch. Its spine was cracked, its pages faded, and when the team joked about “policies from the crypt”, they meant it literally.

Cole, the newest hire, was tasked with updating the staff handbook. “Just pull the policies from the archive,” his manager said lightly. But when he opened the binder, he gasped.

Maternity policies that referred to laws long repealed. Disciplinary procedures written in cold, archaic language. A health and safety section that recommended smoking breaks to “refresh productivity.” It was as though the organisation’s past had clawed its way back into the present.

The real horror came when he realised these policies weren’t just sitting in the crypt — they were still being used. Managers quoted them, employees followed them, and disputes were resolved using outdated rules.

The tipping point came when a new team member put in a flexible working request but was refused because she hadn’t worked there long enough, despite new legislation giving employees that right from day one. The organisation followed the archaic rules, leading to an unfair decision later overturned by a tribunal — along with a hefty compensation bill.

Lesson learned: Outdated policies aren’t harmless relics; they can create real legal and operational nightmares. Regularly review and update your policies to ensure compliance and relevance. Otherwise, those policies from the crypt might come back to haunt you.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our spine-tingling tales of HR Horror. If you every start to feel the goosebumps rising, or a shadow in the dark…who you gonna call? Atkinson HR.

Atkinson HR will not be held responsible for its terrible jokes. You read this far. That’s on you.

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