Purely hypothetical boss-employee question

In My Humble Opinion
1

I promise this is not based in reality, although it was inspired by one of my husband’s coworkers who is about to buy a house that is going to be a stretch at the very least. The situation set my mind off on a flight of “what if” fantasies, that’s all. End of disclaimers.

Employee is getting ready to buy a house, and is happily telling everyone at work all about it, including the price and mortgage terms and all that. The planned purchase is probably not being approached wisely - said employee refuses to listen to suggestions by other homeowners about considering perhaps a less expensive first house and avoiding sub-prime, interest-only mortgage. What the heck, the employee is over 21, although still rather young, and free to make adult decisions, right? (OK, this paragraph is factual. It’s what got me thinking.)

Supervisor does not know for sure but has a pretty good idea that said employee may not have a job for much longer. Whether for performance or reorganization plans or merger in the offing, job security could be iffy. For that matter, the supervisor may well know that in 6 months, half the workforce, including the house-buyer, will be downsized.

If you were the supervisor, what, if anything, would/could you do? For performance considerations, company policy forbids counseling to be along the lines of “Straighten up or you’ll lose your job” although anyone with common sense should know the consequences of substandard performance, right? Reorganizations and mergers are kept quiet till they happen, although rumors might leak out, and savvy employees might be cautious. Would you feel an obligation to prevent the employee from stepping into a disastrous financial situation? Do you consider it to be none of your business? Something in between?
My own opinion, bearing in mind that I’m not a boss and I don’t want to be one: by the letter of most HR rules, there’s nothing you can or should do. Your job as boss is to manage your people and the projects of your department, but apart from scheduling around vacations and emergencies, their personal lives are none of your business. Still, as a human being who made bad fiscal decisions in the past, I would want to take the employee aside and suggest caution… or something… I don’t know that there’s any easy answer to this.

What do you think? Is it a no-win situation?

2

If I were the boss–I’d keep my mouth shut. If employee seems to be in the process of biting off more than he can chew–that’s unfortunate but not my problem. If some of the biting off more than he can chew is due to less job security than he thinks he has–well, tempting as it might be to tell stories of other people with shaky job security and big purchases . . . I don’t think I’d do it.

If the employee asked me for advice as an older, wiser, more experienced person–I might point out that it is a good idea to have a financial cushion, hinting at fiscal emergencies that were not neccessarily job related. But as you’ve described the employee–I think I’d cringe from a distance and mind my own business.

3

This part doesn’t make sense to me. Of course, it may in fact be this company’s policy. But typical HR advice includes telling managers, when they have a disciplinary meeting with an employee about something serious, to specify that failure to correct the situation can have consequences up to and including termination (if that is in fact the case). So if this employee is in the disciplinary process, and for some reason wasn’t told that termination is a possible consequence of the problem continuing, a lot of HR departments would say the employee should be told that. This is all regardless of the house thing, though.

If it is a reorganization/downsizing issue, the manager’s knowledge of that confidential issue should not be shared with the employee. The manager is getting paid by the company to use that info to the benefit of the company, and leaking it could be very detrimental to the company. The manager’s duty to do his job, which includes responsible use of company data, trumps any inclination to influence this employee. If the company’s financial position is hurt by the leak, everyone’s job is even less secure than before.

If a coworker who is not using any confidential company data wants to have a sit down with the homebuyer, they can go right ahead. There is plenty of information out there now about people over their head with mortgages for many reasons.

Management could, possibly, recommend the Employee Assistance Program if there is one. These programs include financial counseling. Something along the lines of “Say, I hear you’re buying a house. The folks at EAP have financial counselors who can help with big decisions like that. Here’s their number.”

4

THIS is why I’d make a lousy boss - it never even occurred to me. I guess I was thinking as a mentor rather than as a supervisor. Once again I’m relieved that I didn’t pursue a management track. I’d really suck at it.

As for the part you quoted, I worded it wrong. I was thinking in terms of “Straighten up - you’re on the short list of people about to be fired.” But like I said, I’m not, nor have I ever been, a manager, so my view of HR policy is probably skewed.

5

This was me, kind of. When we bought our house, it meant I HAD to keep working, because we couldn’t afford the house on just her salary. The bosses didn’t let on that they were planning on eliminating my shift within a year, and when the axe fell, I knew enough about strategic planning to ask how long they had known it would happen. Two years. They knew for two years, which included the entire buying process and even CONGRATULATED ME and told me it was a good idea to buy the place.

I had another job lined up that I was going to work during my off time that was much more stable, so I got to tell my bosses (4 total) that they were like rancid sacks of monkey shit and that karma is a mean bitch. Last phone call I ever got from them.