The Business Shrink--The Disgruntled Employee by Peter Morris

Author:Peter Morris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Adams Media
Published: 2008-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Document All You Do

It is critical to document every consequential managerial interaction you have with your employees. Whether it’s a performance evaluation, a raise or promotion, a disciplinary conversation or letter, everything—I repeat, everything—needs to be in writing. Follow up all of your substantive communications—letters, memos, notes, emails— with employees by documenting them with a file memo just in case you have to prove these exchanges actually occurred.

Have a Witness to Conversations

If you need to have a conversation with an employee about a subject that may concern sensitive issues such as work performance or mental health, do not talk to the employee alone, especially if you are a male supervisor with a female employee, or vice versa. For example, let’s say that some of your staff members have complained that a coworker has been making sexually suggestive remarks that are making them uncomfortable. Since this goes against your organization’s no-tolerance policy for sexual harassment, you want to deal with the situation immediately. Even if there is no specific company policy, you must act, both because the law may have been violated and because you want no disruptive behavior in your workplace. You schedule a meeting with the problem employee. Do you need a witness? You bet your bottom dollar you do.

What if when you schedule the meeting, the accused worker says he won’t come without a coworker present? Most companies do not have to agree to this request unless a collective bargaining agreement mandates it. While nonunion employees have the right to ask for the presence of a witness at any disciplinary meeting or interview, the company isn’t required to honor the employee’s request. This issue arose from a 1975 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that union-represented employees had the right to bring a union representative to any investigatory meeting that might result in disciplinary action. Following that ruling, nonunion workers began to request the right to bring a coworker or even an attorney into meetings with their supervisors if they felt the interview could lead to discipline.

There is no legal requirement that you honor such a request. But no matter the law or the sensitivity of the agenda, it may make both you and the problem worker more comfortable to have a witness there.

Consider meeting with the troubled employee along with a human resources manager. If your organization doesn’t have an HR department, ask another supervisor or manager to sit in on the meeting. Let the employee know why you are doing this, and get the other manager’s promise to keep the issue private. If privacy is a special concern, make each party sign a confidentiality agreement. If there is no appropriate supervisor available, have another member of your staff—say, your assistant—act as a witness to any sensitive confrontations. The accused worker cannot legally demand a witness (unless he’s represented by a union), so he certainly cannot dictate who the witness is going to be. If your assistant or some other management staffer is in the

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