I am the COO of a company with 34 employees. One of my responsibilities is HR and I have been doing it for 11 years. I do not have a degree in HR, I have Masters In Accounting. I have taken many seminars and classes, read books, belong to forums to make sure I have the skills to handle this responsibility. I have a problem now with a person who heads a small department who is questioning my professionalism because first she wanted to use our EIB for a procedure that is not included in it. Our attorney agreed that it did not fit the policy in any way because it was elective and she wanted travel time covered. I gave her an alternative where she could build up some comp time so that the trip would not take all her PTO. She fought this very hard through the Executive Director before he finally let her know the decision was made and she could either use her PTO or do the comp time. Then she was hiring for a new position and we had an internal candidate. When it got down to the final two I asked the hiring committee to include the internal candidate as a third person for a second interview. They ended up not hiring the internal candidate. She has since left the company. The supervisor though continues to say that I forced this interview on her and that it was unfair to do so and a real HR director would not have done that. This was 7 months ago and she has brought it up again in her review with the ED and continues to state that we need a real HR director. We are not in the position to hire someone else and do not have enough work for an HR person. How do I handle this situation so that we can all move forward?

I'd in a carefully worded manner... suggest to them they are bordering on insubordination.

Their request was considered... debated... and in the end rejected. And remind them... in a tactful way... nobody is irreplacible should they choose to continue on a confrontational path..