Is it normal [or legal] for companies to have a policy that forbids employees from being a reference for a former co-worker for either a professional or personal reference?
I have no idea about legal – but it’s certainly not normal, I don’t think. I’ve never heard of it, certainly.
I’ve never seen it or heard of anything similar.
Yes, it has been a policy in every big company I have worked for. I was warned that if anyone asked, I was only allowed to verify time of employment and the job that they did.
This is an attempt to protect companies from lawsuits - if an ex-employee doesn’t get the new job because of a bad reference, they can sue.
Heck, I was even warned here on the Dope against doing so last year when I and many in my team were laid off (I gave references anyway.)
Same situation as **Khadaji **has encountered. I have always been told to refer all such calls to the HR people who are “better equipped to handle such things”.
Yes, I have encountered it big corps. If you have only worked for those types, it can really screw you up. I would guess it is perfectly legal.
From what I’ve experienced, I think this is a pretty popular policy in Nevada. In fact, at one hotel that I worked at the assistant-director was under the impression that it went beyond being company policy and was, in fact, the law. She didn’t believe me when I told her it wasn’t, but this was the woman who’d eat other people’s food from the break room fridge and then say she was allowed because she was pregnant. Sigh.
It’s also made it pretty difficult to get good references that will do more than confirm I worked with them. To those who’ve never heard of the policy before, I’m sure it just sounds cagey as all get out.
As a professional reference, yeah, I’ve heard of that – but I’ve never heard of anyone being forbidden to serve as a personal reference.
That is the policy where I work. Upon further questioning, my boss admitted that if he wanted to give someone a bad reference, he’d say “But I probably wouldn’t rehire them”. Somehow this slips through whatever a lawsuit would cover. Don’t ask me how, I don’t know.
I agree that this is legal and not uncommon. The company is not saying you can’t serve as a reference, but that it will be a violation of company policy if you do, and if you violate that policy, they might not continue to employ you. The way the legal deck is stacked, giving references provides more risk than reward to most companies.
if you know the person as a former coworker and you are serving as a reference for a job applicant, I think it would be hard to argue that this was a personal reference. Which is probably why the companies go ahead and exclude both. I don’t think they’re really concerned about you vouching for John Doe who wants to join your Elks lodge or be named Mother of the Year of Dodge City, or some truly personal reference situation. A personal reference for a job applicant would be like “Well, I’ve never worked with John, but I’ve known him through the Elks for 20 years and he’s an upstanding fellow…”
In his mind only. Really, this is riskier than giving legitimate references. He is going against company policy to badmouth someone. Unless he plans to deny saying it because he would never have gone against policy? :rolleyes:
The legal risks to a company are mainly in giving bad references in a discriminatory fashion (That is, saying nothing when they call about John, because he really needs to feed his family, but saying you wouldn’t rehire Mary, because she doesn’t really need to work… or some such scenario) or giving false bad references OR giving false good references that set another company up for a negligent hire (which could be easy to do inadvertantly if you don’t know the whole story about why someone left). The first scenario would also be easy to do inadvertantly, since if it really goes to court they will not limit themselves to just how a single manager handled references, but the whole company.
To me that isn’t a personal reference. If you put a reference on a job application it should be someone who likes you and is going to be positive about you. What your boss is doing is part of an employment verification where sometimes the question is asked if a former employee is eligable for rehire. I don’t know why but that is important information for some companies to know before they hire someone.
Most businesses I deal with will not discuss rehire as a matter of company policy.
I once had a recruiter who knew the policy but really really wanted me to provide information on someone I wouldn’t rehire. She was persistent
LOL. I repeated the corporate mantra that the man worked for me during X months and did Y for me. She eventually thanked me and hung up.
This is quite commonplace, in my experience. Most companies will offer only the information that the employee did work there for X years in Y capacity. In some cases, managers will be allowed to say the employee did well if you call them, but are forbidden from putting it in writing.
I think there’s a distinction to be made between an outsider initiating contact with a former employer and an employee volunteering the name of a co-worker as a professional reference. It’s common for companies to clam up in the former case, but I’ve never heard of a company forbidding the latter.
If I put on my resume that I worked for the Acme Widget Company, and you call the Acme H.R. department and start asking questions about me, all you’ll get is verification of employment. That’s common prudence.
But if you ask me for professional references, and I give you the name of an Acme co-worker, I’ve never heard of a problem with that. If my employer attempted to prohibit me from serving as a professional reference, I would perceive that as a ham-handed attempt to obstruct people from leaving, and I would mock and ignore the policy. What are they going to do, fire me for saying good things about a co-worker looking for a new job? They’d look like morons and probably expose themselves to greater liability risk than if they left me alone.
This was the first time I had heard of such a thing. I am a bit :dubious: about the whole thing, because how on earth would people ever get any professional references when job seeking if this was universally true. I never read anything like that in the company policy book either
I just don’t see how they can forbid the people you worked closest to from being able to give a reference on your character, work performance and skills. Your co-workers are usually the ones who can best answer that, not some person in HR that you have never met.
In jobs I have had before, I have given references to people who used to work with me, even people who did work with me that were just looking for a better job. I just can’t believe that companies can use tactics like that.
I guess that is just one of those “unfair” things about being a working adult that really suck.
How did you hear about this, LV? Did the company announce this as a new policy, or did you ask someone to be your reference and they said, “I won’t do it because the company forbids it?”
LVgeogeek, you may take some comfort in that career fields tend to break down into those that rely on and give references, and those that don’t. In academia, for example, references are a huge factor. When moving from Mega Corp. to Giga Corp., they will most likely understand why you don’t have references at Mega Corp. Even if they ask for references, they will take your current employment at Mega Corp. as indication of at least minimally acceptable performance.
It can be more difficult for those changing fields from one type of job to the other. This can be a reason to participate in professional associations, nonprofits, etc. Your associates there can be professional references. Also, former coworkers who have left the company may be able to provide you a reference.
I’m not defending this as a perfect world, but in many cases it is a realistic picture.
They can do it since as an employee you are speaking for the company when you give a reference. The employer thus can become a target. Employers understand this policy, and it is not a negative. I ran into it for someone who used to work for me, and he got hired anyway. I happened to know the hiring manager also, which might have helped.
As Harriet said, it is no problem for those outside the company. I’ve done it, and when I switched jobs I got professional contacts to write references.
Some people here may remember my thread on being verbally “assaulted” by a co-worker. Well, it sort of all went down hill, and needless to say I am no longer with that company. My friends at work all said they would be references for me.
I confirmed with my work friends after I left that I could still use them and they said no problem. Then about a week ago one friend overheard management talking about me and said that employees have to be told that they are forbidden from providing me references :dubious: then it was told to the employees verbally, no memo or email went out.
I got two phone calls from my friends telling me this. They said they are a bit freaked out. And hinted that they were now also looking for new employment as it has made them highly uncomfortable.
One said they had been called by a company I just interviewed with this past Tuesday. He missed the call and they left a message. I just told him just don’t call them back that I did have other people listed (from previous jobs and a handful of personal references).
I had worked there for two years and other employees had left for greener pastures, but it was never said that we couldn’t be references for those people.
I wanted to pose this question upfront in a vague way to first see if it was commonplace in business or just a tactic used against employees that the company had a beef with.