The way you treat the people you terminate can make the difference between an ex-employee who is upset but moving on, and an ex-employee who is angry and calling 1-800-LAWYER.
Lin Grensing-Pophal, writing in Human Resource Executive, cited several tales that highlight what disgruntled employees might do:
- One made a false accusation of harassment that took months to unravel.
- Another flipped off a switch that the remaining employees didn’t know about, thus disabling the corporate computer system and causing IT experts to spend 2 weeks chasing down what they thought was a computer virus.
- A third implanted a virus into his company’s computer system that was timed to take effect 2 weeks after the employee departed.
And the list goes on—file deletions, theft of proprietary information, etc. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many of these egregious acts would not ever have taken place if the people involved had just been treated with respect during their terminations.
A recent article in Corporate Counsel points to another avenue of employee reprisal—damaging claims of whistleblowing retaliation and/or wrongful discharge. In the article, attorneys Russell Hayman and Jon Dean note that lawsuits which are in reality simple claims of wrongful discharge take on an aura of respectability when attached to a charge of whistleblowing or other retaliation.
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Hayman and Dean offer the following suggestions for avoiding such claims:
Treat outgoing employees with dignity and respect at all times. It’s not hard to do and it will pay off handsomely.
Have an internal company policy in place on how to handle terminations. You want departing employees treated according to a set, consistently applied process, the attorneys say.
Conduct an effective and extensive exit interview. Do the interview for all departing employees, whether the separations are voluntary or involuntary. Have two people perform the interview if possible, so there are two witnesses to the interview.
If allegations of wrongdoing surface, take them seriously. Inform management, and conduct an investigation. Demonstrate that the company takes all such concerns seriously and is committed to compliance.
Document all actions you take in responding to compliance concerns. If you don’t act after you are on notice of a problem, your actions will become "willful" violations, the attorneys note.
Take corrective action if allegations prove to be true, or be prepared to show that the allegations are false. This minimizes your exposure to later claims of retaliation. Your careful attention to investigating mitigates any claim that the employer was "motivated" to terminate the employee, say Hayman and Dean.
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You Can’t Single Out the Bad Eggs
Many employers believe that they can identify the most likely-to-sue employees, and so they take preventive actions with respect to those particular employees only. That’s a mistake, say Hayman and Dean. First of all, your suspicions won’t be accurate, because it’s hard to predict who will sue and who will not. And secondly, consistency is important, so it’s best to treat all employees the same.
Hayman and Dean are partners at the Los Angeles office of the law firm McDermott Will & Emery.
In tomorrow’s Advisor, we’ll take a look at how to conduct an effective exit interview, courtesy of BLR’s SmartPolicies program.
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