Micro Focus: How to not do the right thing.

Micro Focus: How to not do the right thing. TC: 450 – YoE: 10+ (Can’t say more or would be too widely identifiable) Let me tell you a story abut Micro Focus. Yes it’s worse that what you heard… HP/HPE were not bad. But not only is it now a world of stagnating products, uninspiring leadership or lack luster product vision and roadmap, the company has become a cesspool of incompetence, non accountability, dishonesty and contract forgery. Imagine in October 2019, enrolling in benefits that, after having been kind of crappy post the split from HPE, became suddenly more attractive. It sounds like it’s going in the right direction right. Including then the ability to sign-up for a supplemental life insurance for more than $1M, no strings attached and at a good rate. Because you had life insurance, carried over from past employers, but high rate (no ore subsidized), you sign up. With the intention to ditch these past insurances. Micro Focus then confirms via email the benefits in December, as long that employee does not report errors, without again any disclaimer or strings attached and the benefits start in January. So later in the year you cancel these past life insurance plans. They are now gone. In September 2020, you receive an email telling you that the Company can’t continue to pay for something and will correct the mistake; no details. Then a few weeks later you receive a benefit statement, analogous to the December email but forged to now indicate coverage at 1M (not the initial value) dated January 1, 2020. It seems like fraud and contract forgery doesn’t it? When you escalate through HR self service support, you are told by a benefit employee that it’s an issue that had been known for several months to HR and management and that the statement tampering has been approved at the top and that between 12 and 32 other employees are similarly affected. When you escalate internally, pointing to these statements, that employee seems to be no more with the company. A stuff of movies? Or is it rather a repeat of the same incompetent HR, benefit and associated vendor incompetence. Say for example that over the last 3 years, twice already they managed to screw up your salary in the system (hence giving incorrect benefits amounts) or shut down over Christmas shutdown without sending you the details of your dental insurance, then when you kid has an emergency, right after new Year you do have the details, nor any body nor a work 3rd party web site to know who your provider is, (it changed the second year while harmonizing after the split from HPE). Dental is bad but what if it had been a life-threatening medical emergency? Anybody said pattern of negligence or incompetence? Also, they can’t say they didn’t know they had problems. You then go to the head of benefits. He does a snow job of explaining that it is because, they forgot by mistake to specify the EOI (Evidence of Insurability), but no issues, fill the form it will be resolved. Anybody with a little bit of knowledge of insurances knows already that it won’t. Good faith, bad faith, playing the clock (They suggested late that problem is moot at renewal in October, which is not correct as supplemental that can be carried with you when leaving the company are grand fathered at least as long as offered to other employees also… )? The insurance wants blood works and physical examination. Having a committed agreement (end 2019) and considering the pandemic (Hello, COVID?) you refuse: 1) Because it’s not a good idea to go to a Doctors office at this time 2) The state/region is under lock down and will be so till the deadline to do this. 3) You do not want to take a test and now be rejected (it may happen) as the EOI form states that they can share your result with a forum of other companies. Unless well committed by Micro Focus and The Insurance company, if you fail, you will not be able to even buy your self the missing coverage because of the record! You then escalate to the VP of compensation, who rejects any help, not even covering the delta of lost coverage (remember it’s been lost since you canceled them…) and claims this (no help and clearly the accompanying fraud and document tampering) by the CHRO (and COO), i.e. an officer of a public company. It is confirmed by HR. They will not even accept that if you were to pass away before the matter is resolved, something not impossible in the middle of a pandemic, they would not cover the delta for your kids. Kids would have to sue. Which is a sad story if you are already a single parent (deceased spouse)! With not too many “friendly” avenues, you have to decide what’s next. Take on HR and the CHRO and COO, and kiss goodbye to any future at Micro Focus (yes I know, probably a good idea) or accept to be stolen a lot of money. So you think you can find innovative approaches. A) You ask for to speak with the legal department and get opinion form the legal department on why they feel they do not have to respect the agreement. B) You decide to whistle blow HR and HR Benefits for fraud, document tampering and cover up. After all it is what happened, it’s not frivolous and Micro Focus has a no retaliation policy. Micro Focus sets up per process and policies an investigation, which seems to competently do the job. Yet you then receive a emailed letter from a law firm titled “Micro Focus vs. *your name*” which suggest that you direct to them all communications from your lawyer etc. In other words, your request to geta discussion with legal got you what can really be construed as an intimidation letter treating the case as a lawsuit. And that is in lieu of a discussion with your employer who is supposed to care for you and provide this service! What are you to do? Ask clarification from the team in charge of the whistle blowing. They tell you not to worry. They are aware. The person in charge of the whistle blowing team and of providing the answer from the legal department is the same person! Quite surprising, you would have rather expected a China wall. More concerning, that person’s title is VP of litigation. It is hard to miss what would be construed as an intimidation atmosphere. The law firm, externally contracted for this, argues complicated ERISA laws (federal regulation of benefits) and prior cases where employees would have sued their employers over nonfulfillment of clause or not ok terms when the insurance had to “pay up”, and associated judgments that employees can’t force their employers to provide alternate insurances. As a quick note, not being a lawyer, these cases do not address mistakes made by employer by negligence or incompetence, breach of agreement and subsequent damages due to reasonable reliance (legal terms for canceling coverage because you relied on the committed agreement) or implication of statement/contract/document tampering. Yet, when asked, they tell you that they answered, and won’t communicate any further. So what do you do? Go back to Micro Focus to ask these clarification questions. To whom? The CHRO that you whistle blow? The VP of litigation? Who? Let’s say we go to the VP of Litigation. You asks for explanation about these missing considerations. No answer. You ask about addressing compensatory damages from the reasonable reliance (e.g., cost to recover (at higher rate) the lost coverage). You are told that Micro Focus will consider based on estimates that they do not agree to find themselves. Next chat is after Christmas break. Oh, and then, you are told that the whistle blowing case will probably not be pursued as they would have concluded it was a mistake from the third-party vendor. Great would you have expected something else when you were showing that the officers of a public company where approving document tampering? Then nothing. Months without update on either topic: compensation or whistle blowing. Till you get tired and say Sayonara to the company to find a better gig with a company that actually cares! It is ironic isn’t it that a company that has come to be known by all in the industry as one of the worse vendor in terms of audits, i.e., to determine out of compliance – i.e., contract breaches. Yet, it may appear that it’s what they did and covered up fraudulently. It is also amazing that a company who marketing motto is “fix the old and bring the old to the new”, can’t gets its internal system to work correctly (the alleged 3rd party mistake) because it would be old, legacy, Cobol based? Micro Focus is supposedly the leader of Cobol tools and legacy application transformation! Really? Either Micro Focus lies or they are really incompetents. Micro Focus customers, current or future, should take a step back, and ask themselves if this is the kind of company they want to partner with. Employees, current and future, should probably consider if that’s who they want to work with, and if they can trust such a company. I wouldn’t. Eventually, if there are 12 to 32 employees in a similar situation, they may want to consider what could be their next steps. I hope it shed more lights on what kind of company Micro Focus is. No matter how bad its reputation already was… it’s worse! Any lawyer interested? Sure, DM. #benefits #documenttampering #whistleblow #coverup #noshame #notare #incompetence #microfocus