Sascha. In fact, I fail to understand why she’s still around to be fired in this scenario, as she’s have immediately been fired already after calling black people “niggers”, “Mandingo” and “gorillas” within earshot of me. Emily I’d still have hopes of listening (especially after this round of firings,* pour encourager les autres*), Cote’s counselling might just be taking time, but racism like Sascha’s tends not to disappear.
I definitely* don’t *live in an at-will jurisdiction, and I’d still be within my rights to fire someone who did that (or local nigger equivalent) here. Not warn them, fire them outright. Hell, it could get them jail time…
And I’d just like to say, Skald, that I find this particular scenario even more fantastic than any of your superhero or zombie ones - I believe in unicorns being possible more than I believe in this magical racist whose racism never, ever shows in their work life…
Just to check, are we sure she is talking about black people, not people from Nigg or named Nigg, right? Is there a Nigg in Tennessee? I see there’s an importer called Holger Nigg in TN, and Nigg is a surname present in TN.
When you hear hoofbeats, expect horses, not zebras. Her comments about Mandingo and gorilla rape make her meaning obvious. And “Niger” is pnounced very different from “nigger”; the central consonant is the sibilant in the middle of “visionk” and the vowel in the first syllable is the vowel of “bee,” not “bit.”
Racists control their racism for practical reasons all the time. Sasha has not called for the outlawing of interracial marriage; she just refuses to attend one, and expressed stereotypical fear of black men’s sexuality. She is demonstrably not trying to screw over her black customers, because she wants the commissions treatimg them properly can bring.
It disturbs me that you seem to think that non-realized beliefs should be criminalized.
Sasha did not express her comments in “private”. She expressed then in a semi-public space on company property, during company time, where anyone could hear her.
At the very least, this shows very poor judgement. At the worst (for me), I could end up liable for allowing a hostile work environment to continue. If it had been someone else on that stall, her comments could have easily been extremely destructive to my team’s productively and could even damage the company as a whole.
Sasha goes, but it needs to be processed according to our organization’s process for hostile comments. Emily gets on a performance plan-- she needs to get back on track. I probably need to do some soul searching about why my team is having such a tough time performing well.
Unless you’re in Africa. Or the American great plains, where you’d expect bison.
Indeed, but the point remains. It’s easy to misunderstand. It’s a trope that goes back centuries if not millennia. I live in Aberdeen in Scotland, and there’s a suburb called Nigg, above an area called Nigg Bay. There’s also a Nigg further north, near Inverness. Someone from Nigg could legitimately be called a Nigger (q.v. London & Londoner, New York & New Yorker). Obviously the term is rarely used! And there are people called Nigg in Tennessee.
The OP does not say that the Sasha were on company premises or at work. It says they were in a bathroom, and the the hypotheticalyou was in a stall in the midst of something disgusting and presumably embarrasing. That could have been at a restaurant after work. I agr ththat saying it aloud was fooolish.
As to your peronal libaility–where do yu think it’s coming from? There is no reasonto think Sasha knows you were in the stall, and no one else was there. Your invetigation was discreet and uncovered no wrongdoing. If Sasha were dropping n-bombs at work or discriminating against customers or co-workers she’d have to be disciplined, but your own investigation shows no evidence of that.
Counseling her that she must never say anything like that at work is fine. Couselng her that she must treat all customers equally and work to bring in business is fine (though she is already doing that, so it’s kind of pointless). Firing her because of something she MIGHT do is unethical, paarticularly when all evdence shows that she is not doing that.
Also, firing Sasha as you describe – as discipline for hostile comments – creates problems. You’ve already been directed to reduce headcount. Going through the formal disciplinary process takes time You have an immediate need to reduce headcount, since you don’t want to fire Emily – who has not been doing a critical part of her job )briging in new business) for THREE MONTHS --you must now lay off Cote.
I don’t know what one overheard conversation under whatever the circumstances were is supposed to tell us about Sasha. There’s some chance that what you heard does not really reveal what you think it does about Sasha. Emily is the one that there’s a clear business reason to let go. Given this bizarre situation it sounds like Emily is the one to lay off. But I’d try to find out more about all three of these people before making a decision. There’s no clear choice here.
Although the hypothetical seems to have obvious answers to most of us, the value of this one is that our decision to (different) people is inherently obvious!
It comes down to our proclivity to separate ethical and business acumen. Some people, and I consider myself to be part of this group, do not care about people’s political leanings, ideologies, or any other opinions as long as they get the job done, within organizational rules.
Sasha stays.
Her opinions were shared under the pretense of privacy and though detestable (apparently) do not cause her to be any less professional in her work dealings.
Emily is gone, Coté too depending on how down is “way” down.
Sasha almost certainly broke the rules by making abominably racist comments where others might hear them, even if I was the only one who did. That could be a fireable offense, IMO.
I’d consider firing her but would probably fire Emily, since Emily is a lousy worker and Sasha is a good one. But I’d hold that in reserve for later cuts, and barring another lousy worker, Sasha would be next to go.
Cote continues to get the benefit of the doubt, at least for another 6 months or so, IMO.
Fire both Coté and Emily. We know from the OP that Coté has nothing but good things to say about Sasha, therefore Sasha’s personal views, however unpleasant, are not impacting her work relationships or productivity. Emily is a slacker who got lucky for one quarter - a hard worker like Sasha will do better.
Besides, legally, on the one hand you have
and
vs. something you overheard in the restroom about Sasha’s personal life. It’s a matter of documented, business-related behavior against undocumented gossip.
Business decisions should be based on business. If you can leave your personal beliefs out of your work, then they are none of your employer’s business. If you can’t, they are, and the business needs to take them into account.
Her JOB is to make the company money. I’m willing to work with someone who does their JOB.
Sasha’s offenses consist of foolishly not checking under the doors of the bathroom stalls before spouting off racist comments, and not going to her sister’s wedding for racist reasons. The latter is clearly her private business. The former has not affected anyone else. Your own investigation has not uncovered any wrongdoing on her part.
I’d fire Emily. I value process over results so Sasha’s job is safe I’d be tempted to fire Cote but at least there is an attempt at progress there but she would certainly be put on an improvement plan and there would serious talks about what she needs to do to save her job.
The hidden racist thing doesn’t bother me unless I have to see, hear, deal with, or see fall out from it. Actions and words are all we have to judge people and as long as her actions and words have fooled everyone but me I’m more inclined to think off it as something said in anger then a regular part of a person’s life. that being said we’d have a conversation about how something are not said at work no matter how alone you think think you are another person ever hearing that sort of thing from her and she’d be fired.
It’s a tough situation. You can’t use the one overheard conversation to fire Sasha. It’s hard to find a way to believe under the circumstances that Sasha hasn’t revealed some repressed hatred, but there’s nothing in her work record to justify laying her off. Cote and Emily are both under-performing. You imply that Cote’s performance has been better, and there should be some expectation that over time it will improve. The circumstances for Cote warrant some tolerance for her current low sales figures. Emily’s lack of performance lacks justification. Whether or not her distractions is a good cause doesn’t matter, she’s using work time for the benefit of others instead of doing her job. She has to be the one to let go.
The problem with firing Sasha is that it doesn’t make sense to anyone but you. If asked why you fired her and you said it’s because she’s a racist then no one would believe you. You’d have to explain how you overheard this conversation, at best people would say you misheard her, at worst you’ll be accused of making it up. Even if you confront Sasha directly she could deny it and you might be accused of harboring baseless animosity towards her. Her work record indicates under-performance is just a brief slump that she will work her way out of.
The problem with firing Cote is that she’s a good employee with an understandable reason for under-performing. You can justify firing her for the under-performance but you it may hurt morale with the other employees. It’s a question of time, has it been long enough to say she won’t recover? It’s tough to make that call, but her personal problems weren’t of her own making, you don’t want to give other employees the impression their jobs can be lost due to circumstances out of their control. Despite that her lack of improvement after a year is grounds to let her go.
Emily though, she’s a problem. She has no excuse for not doing a better job. She could, she’s not trying to, she has been affected by the same circumstances as Cote, but she is more removed from situation, and she’s ignored your efforts to get her back on track. She may be performing a little better than the other two, but the circumstances require that she do better, she has to make the calls and put the effort in. Just like the other two her performance may improve but she has the least justification for her failings at the moment.
There’s no clear choice here, there’s reasons to pick any of the three, but Emily is the one to clearly choose based on business reasons alone.
Fire them all and pocket the profits while twirling your mustache and laughing maniacally.
Short of that, then EMILY is the clear choice to be laid off (not fired), especially since she has already been warned about her activities during work hours. Though, honestly, you’d need a bit more detail to make a real world assessment of this, including more details as to WHY the company has to get rid of one of the three listed here and why you, as a manager are having to do this action.
The difference between being laid off and being fired is the difference between being punched very hard in the nose by your assailant’s right fist and being punched very hard in the hose by your assailant’s left fist.
As for more detail, how the hell long do you want these hypos to be? The OP sais that the company is cuttng costs, that you must reduce a team of 16 to 12, and that you’ve elemited the other 13 possibilities for various reasons.
