During a meeting yesterday we were told that two employees were ‘under investigation’ for something they did. We were not told what happened, only that they were ‘under investigation’. Not only that, but we reviewed the code of conduct list everybody has to sign when they get hired. This makes me a little concerned.
As it is, there has been a morale problem with the staff. People have been quitting because one of the managers has been a difficult individual to deal with. I have observed this carefully; there’s always been a natural turnaround of people going off to college/other jobs, replaced by kids recently old enough to join the workforce. I wouldn’t consider my 2 1/2 years of working there a long time, but when you consider that I have worked for the company longer than anybody else currently there (managers included) I’d like to think my experience might be helpful to the rest of the staff. So I’ve been trying to keep morale up, because I don’t plan on quitting that job right now, but if everybody else quits then I’m screwed since I’m the guy that decided to take the extra mile and pick up the slack when people quit unexpectantly, stick around and help out when the next person scheduled in is an hour late, or come in before business hours/during days off to finish side tasks given to me whose deadlines are looming ahead.
Bringing up this ‘investigation’ in a way that basically tells the employees “Somebody did something super bad but we’re not telling anybody what it is or giving specific warning about anything” will just make people nervous and probably worry if they unwittingly did something ‘wrong’ only to be sued by a vindictive parent. Some employees are not going to want to deal with walking on eggshells about the whole thing, and will resign not out of guilt, but out of stress. This further strains our already decimated staff. True, it is an excellent opportunity for me to test my mettle in terms of applying for management in a few months, by taking initative and being a leader, but it isn’t the most ideal circumstances that could happen
What is even sadder is that I got along very well with the 2 employees currently under investigation. They were hard workers who were reliable and owned up to mistakes. If it is true they did something wrong, I guess I’d feel a little betrayed, and also a little bit foolish that I couldn’t catch them at their wrongdoing. As it is I work with them nearly every day so I am surprised this has happened.
I worked at a large bookstore years ago when they went through restructuring. The management (at least at my store, but my impression was it was larger) handled it in very much the same bungled way. After the press release of their intention to restructure, the word “bankruptcy” started going around, often from customers. Of course that has many meanings that most of us don’t appreciate. The 4-5 top managers had word about the changes coming, that they would include people’s positions and payrates … “but don’t talk about it for a month or two”. How could they expect that to really happen? What they got was two months of rumors and gossip, sinking morale, and general discomfort that led to a half the staff (many many years of experience) leaving.
Better to be upfront with your employees. And if you have to give warnings of impending doom, make them as specific as possible, otherwise people’s imaginations take them to whatever extreme they like.
We caught someone stealing from our company, someone in a fairly high position. Granted, we’re a not-for-profit, and any bad publicity is 10x worse, but it’s been two years and the people who worked in the same office still whisper her name. :smack:
Incubus, does your employer have a policy prohibiting dating between employees? We recently had two folks doing the nasty together (on their off-time), and as a result we all had to sign a non-dating clause that has been added to the employee manual. If these two are as good as you say they are, that’s the first (and really, only) transgression that comes to my mind.
It sucks, but what else can the employer do? In many cases, not much. Blabbling about personnel issues even when the person is guilty of whatever is being blabbed about is, unfortunately, often grounds for a successful suit by the blabee. If s/he turned out not to be guilty of whatever is being investigated? Whoa nellie! Now not only is the company going to lose the suit, they’re going to deserve to because they did the wrong thing by tarring someone who didn’t deserve it. So unfortunately all to often the only realistic alternative is to say absolutely as little as possible while acknowledging the inevitable rumors, giving a base reason for the sudden increase in closed office doors and going about the company’s business.
What is the point of such an announcement? It sounds unfair, at the very least, to identify the individuals “under investigation” before a conclusion is reached.
Exactly. We in IT get to help with investigations all the time, but nobody discusses what they’re being investigated for as a rule–just that an investigation is going on. We restore emails and data and keep our mouths shut.
If the charge is serious enough (such as theft or embezzlement), you don’t want them to continue with their duties, because they may continue to steal. And if their duties are curtailed, some kind of explanation to the company at large (or at least the people they interact with) is necessary. But manny is right when he says to minimize the official company statement about the matter.
An additional comment is that it might be even more detrimental to morale to have a lot of questions being asked, those two not working, and a lot of whispering and closed doors without at least a small explanation. Not to mention management covering their own rear-ends by making sure everyone in the company has had a review of the policies in case “it” happens again.
Thanks for the feedback. I guess the main problem is the timing- we already had a problem with more people quitting than getting hired- frankly the job’s appeal for people has seemed to have fallen in the toilet.
Why am I still there? Well, for starters, the job is flexibile enough that I can do many other things on top of it. Folks who complain they don’t ‘make enough’ at the job are putting too much emphasis on money; the job’s schedule is far more flexible than anything I have done previously.
I don’t think the job forbids dating. At one point last year, 8 out of the 12 staff members were ‘couples’ :eek: . I resented it because of the potential for problems, but to be honest there weren’t any issued that surfaced from the relationships, so I figure if people can keep things professional at work, I honestly don’t care who they suck face with after hours.
Sadly, the managers are in a very challenging position. The availability of jobs in general has started to improve, so high school kids aren’t flooding us with applications like they used to. The managers cannot lowering their hiring standards to compensate for the lack of qualified applicants. Employees feel frustrated and disenfranchised, and nobody has gotten a raise all year. This is creating an ‘exodus’ of qualified people, and it is a damn shame I’m the only one crazy enough to stay on this sinking ship
I don’t see why the incident or the announcement should be such a blow to morale. All the managers have to do is acknowledge that the situation is awkward and stressful, that they felt the employees deserved some explanation of what was going on, but that for legal reasons they couldn’t explain as much as they’d like. I’d take that in stride, and I think most people would.
It sounds to me like the message wasn’t so terrible but maybe the delivery was not very deft. And for some reason it came out seeming like you were all under suspicion. Some managers are just lousy communicators.
