This thread is suggested by the Ray Rice scandal, about which I shall say nothing further because I had never heard of Ray Rice before the elevator video scandal broke, have never watched said video, and know nothing about football except how to spell it in both regular English orthography and the IPA. (/ˈfʊt.bɔːl/, as if anyone cares.)
I manage an inside sales call center. The account managers who are the majority of my employees each have a sales territory of a several hundred small businesses who do between $50 and $200 worth of business with our company. They do their jobs over the phone. Sometimes that means taking calls from customers who have issues they need help solving; sometimes it means proactively calling customers. While account managers’ jobs do not involve face-to-face contact with customers most of the time, the better ones make site visits every few months, and the job is a stepping stone to a field sales position, which obviously involves customer contact almost every day.
Here in Memphis there are at least two local magazines that regularly print mug shots and arrest reports of people who have recently been the subject of undesired constabulary attention. I’ve never bought one myself, but let’s say that I did, and that I discovered that one of my reps had been arrested on a domestic violence charge, in an incident similar to Rice’s. Knowing this employee and his temper, I find it quite easy to believe that he’s guilty. Account reps are not unionized, and this is a right to work (read: right to work for less) state; I have the authority to suspend or fire this employee immediately, to wait for judicial adjudication, or to ignore it until/unless he fails to show up for work 'cause he’s in jail. Several other account managers know of the employee’s legal problems, and the law of gossip tells us they all will very shortly.
What would you like me to do under such circumstances, and why?
Personally, I’d suspend him until the trial, and then fire his ass when they find him guilty. I have zero tolerance for that kind of shit. I don’t care a whit about whether or not his temper affects his work, or anything else about his private life. The scumbag has shown himself to be a wife-beater, and he will not work for me in any capacity. Period. It may be a totally illogical position for me to take. I don’t care. I am large - I contain multitudes.
Don’t you mean “if” he’s found guilty? Or perhaps you have more confidence in the police and prosecutors in your town than I do, in terms of both probity and competence.
Also, do you mean suspend with pay, or without? Because the latter is just a cowardly way of firing someone on a working-class salary.
IMHO, unless it has a bearing on his job you should not do anything. If it is affecting his job, you can fire him, or punish. You shouldn’t be punishing him at all for the alleged crime, or for an eventual conviction, that’s for the courts to do, any firing should be related to his work performance, or a matter of policy regarding criminal convictions while employed.
If he is convicted I think you should either fire him or keep him, not add punishment to what the courts determine. And the firing should be based on policy. The courts should determine what a criminal needs to do to pay his debt to society, not employers.
Realistically, just the effect of his crime on employee morale, or the possible disruption of communication with other employees is certainly a job performance issue to consider firing or other actions for, even if it’s unfair to him, because your obligation is to the company.
By punishing him pre-conviction, you’re violating the employee’s right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Unless something related to the arrest or trial materially affects his performance as an employee, you’re probably opening yourself up to liability by firing him.
Regardless of the legalities, you’re using the Constitution as toilet paper if you punish someone for a crime they have not been convicted for.
Since you manage the call center, rather than owning it, you should follow company policy. If there is no applicable policy, then you should do nothing that is not reflective of his workplace performance.
If you know this employee has a bad temper, then he must be doing something at work to give you that knowledge. Therefor it must be having some effect, right? What if he snaps at a customer and loses the company business? I’d be inclined to fire him.
Is this account manager one of the ones who does proactively go out to a lot of sites? If not, then the likelihood of his productivity decreasing as a result of his notoriety seems low, and I would not ask you to take any action at this time.
If he is a frequent site-visitor, are there any indications that his productivity has decreased, and if so, is that decrease in productivity likely to be tied to his notoriety? If that’s the case, he’s got to go, at least until his case has been adjudicated. See if you can shuffle him into a position that allows him to remain employed, but with no customer interaction at all.
OTOH, is his presence in the workplace contributing to a productivity-disrupting atmosphere? Then there might be cause for concern, and depending on circumstances, may require you to jettison him.
Reason: What Skald needs to concern himself with is the productivity of the office that’s been entrusted to him.
As a small business guy myself, I kinda feel for this situation. If you have “just enough” employees to do the job, you can’t afford to be suspending one and holding his/her job open indefinitely until their legal issues are worked out. Especially suspending them WITH pay. So, strictly on economic grounds, I’d sorta be forced to either keep the person on as long as they can fulfill their duties, or fire them outright and hire someone else.
And, just to be honest, if they did a good enough job and got along with everyone, I’d probably opt to keep them on. It’s hard to find people who do a good enough job AND get along with everyone.
Yup, with all due respect, going into an unemployment review board with that line of reasoning would get you splatterkilled unless you are able to tie it to his work. Got arrested and missed 3 days of work while in jail, fine, fire him for missing 3 days of work. If he shows up and does his job as well as or better than the crappiest employee I have, his personal legal problems are going to be dismissed as irrelevant to my business.
It’s not your job to punish people for their wrongdoings.
If his personal problems are causing problems with his work performance, causing internal workforce conflict, or if they are impacting your company’s image with customers, then firing him may be the best course of action for the health of the company.
The key word in the OP question is “accused”. I agree with the other posters here indicating to let the law run it’s course before making any decisions about someone “accused” of a crime. If there is a video or some other unquestionable evidence made public, or a conviction, that may influence your ultimate decision, but you don’t want to jump to conclusions (Duke Lacrosse scandal).
Do thousands of people across the country identify this one employee with your company, such that this one employee actually represents your company, whether he is at work or not? Do thousands of people across the country wear replicas of your company’s uniform shirt, with your company logo on it, and this one employee’s name on it? Has this behavior become so common among so many different employees of yours, or employees of other companies within the same field, that each new incident makes you think, “Oh goddammit, not again!”
Also, is there video of the incident which clearly shows that this happened exactly the way that it is alleged, or does the employee openly acknowledge that this happened exactly how it is alleged?
I didn’t make it clear in the OP (my fault, nobody else’s), but yes, I did intend that there be video of the employee’s punch; that’s what I meant in calling it similar to the Rice incident.
Your points in your second paragraph are all well thought, and elements I had overlooked in thinking about Ray Rice’s issues. As I said in the OP, I had never heard of him before all this stuff; in fact the only other NFL players I can name are the Manning brothers and Tim Tebow, and I wouldn’t know any of them if they bit me.
This isn’t true. Presumption of innocence only applies to the court system, not to businesses or private citizens. Skald the Rhymer can believe whatever he wants about anyone and base his actions off those beliefs.
He’s not using the constitution as toilet paper because it doesn’t apply to him and was never meant to.
No. I personally find all this ‘men can’t hit women’ stuff silly. I’m not saying I do it (I know it is really socially unacceptable) but men hitting men, or women hitting women, or women hitting men doesn’t bat an eye. Its stupid. Are you going to fire every woman who hits her husband, or every gay guy who hits his spouse, or every lesbian who hits her spouse, or every person who gets in a fistfight?
Personally and as a small business owner, I would fire him prior to conviction just because I find domestic violence reprehensible. I am also in a right to work state. It would, however, perhaps depend on this employee’s performance, job history with me and how it might impact the job at hand.
That would only be the case if there was (and there was, in this hypothetical) irrefutable proof, such as a video.
That said I had a convicted felon working for me for six years. Excellent and responsible employee, and his conviction was for felony drunk driving, committed years before I hired him. Admittedly stupid behaviour on his part, but he was 20 when convicted and 30 when I hired him.