Chair throwing VP

This post may be lengthy - sorry...

About 5 months ago, one of our VPs became upset at work and threw a chair in the office. He was counseled after the 1st incident (no documentation and I don't know the details).

Last week, he did it again in the presence of an office worker who apparently became very frightened. She has requested a meeting and I assume she will be logdging a complaint (I wasn't in the office at the time).

We plan to investigate and put a stop to this behavior. The owner of the co. doesn't want to terminate the VP (he has been here about 20 years and considered a value, blah, blah). Would it be appropriate to give the VP one more chance and require him to attend anger management counseling as a condition of continued employment?

At this time, we don't have any indication of a physical or emotional condition that might be considered a disability and I'm trying to avoid getting into that.

While my first reaction was to terminate him immediately, I don't have that option right now so I'm looking for an alternative that we can all live with that will ensure that our employees are safe from further incidents of potential violence, hostile work environment, etc.

Has anyone dealt with this tye of situation before? I would appreciate your thoughts.

And, as always, there is another kink to consider: the employee who complained is a poor performer and they had considered terminating her before this happened. Of course, we will not proceed with any termination of this employee right now, but eventually it will be best for her to leave. To avoid a charge of retaliation, what should I do?

Grateful in advance...

Comments

  • 16 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • First of all, you said he has been at the company for 20 years. Has this type of behavior occurred in the past? If not, drastic change of behavior can be a sign of mental/emotional illness and only a mental health professional can determine this. I would not rule it out. At the very least, it sounds like he definitely needs anger management classes. His behavior could become dangerous,i.e, he could hurl something in his office and hurt someone one day and you definitely would be liable as you have allowed this type of behavior to continue.

    Also, requiring this person to get some help would also take care of your issue with the employee lodging the complaint.
  • Thanks, Rockie. I'm of the same mind.

    This behavior started about 6 months ago. My first thought was an emotional or mental problem (or medication) and it threw up a red flag. I want to make sure we proceed carefully and don't violate ADA.

    I appreciate you confirming that I'm on the right track.

    Best of the day to you!
  • In my opinion, you should at this point stay away from continuing the dangerous path of exploring ADA. You gave that immediate consideration which is fine. After looking through his medical file and personnel file and having a discussion with the owner, I assume you arrived at the conclusion that there is nothing historical or in terms of his medical remarks that might make ADA a consideration. For you to continue to explore ADA (even if in your own mind or the collective minds of management there) you run the very real risk of having him automatically covered by ADA, just by virtue of what you've done. I'm suggesting that for you to continue to ponder ADA and grasp at invisible and perhaps non-existent medical threads to explain his behavior will very likely result in your conclusion that the man has a disability of some sort. That alone will qualify him, whether or not your analysis was correct.

    The Company should start its discipline process immediately for the chair thrower. Forget that he's a VP (easier said) and put your discipline in motion as if he were a payroll clerk. He should be asked to explain his behavior. The person who asks the question should take complete notes of his explanation. Once given this opportunity, if he does not mention anything medical, and just dismisses his own behavior as meaningless, do not continue to explore the medical possibilities. When you do, you're offering him the lifeline that may strangle you and the company.

    The productivity of the woman he threw the chair at is totally irrelevant, unless you have 'chair throwing' as one of the progressive steps in your disciplinary process, and I doubt you do. Her performance is an entirely separate issue and she should be disciplined independent of him.
  • I think the advice that has been given so far is good.

    We have an EAP and I would have the VP sign a "last chance" agreement & get into counseling for this anger problem.

    Also, I would have him apologize to the person he threw the chair at. A sincere apology goes a long way.
  • [font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-03-03 AT 10:40AM (CST)[/font][p]Did he just throw a chair or did he throw it at someone? Very big difference.
  • I see this a bit differently. You have already allowed this to happen once with no formal discipline. You can't suddenly treat him like he has already been disciplined. He was "counseled". That just means someone talked to him.

    I would issue the employee a written reprimand and warn him in writing that he faces termination if he has outbursts like this again. Of course, there is no sense in warning him of this if the owner won't back it up when the time comes. Otherwise, you might as well tell him "we don't like it, but you can probably keep doing it without fear of serious reprisal".

    Too many HR people want to diagnose the employee's mental health problems. Deal with what you know as facts.......the employee has bad behavior.....discipline him for the bad behavior. Don't try to figure out why he has bad behavior. If he coughs up info that indicates he might need ADA condieration then consider it at that time.
  • I think that referring the VP to EAP will pave the way for an ADA claim as Don suggested. I would focus on the observable behavior, deal with that, and let the pseudo-diagnosis stuff alone. Believe it or not, I knew a plant superintendent who utilized violent tantruming as his intervention of last resort to motivate employees. He would call the EE into his office, then proceed to start screaming and throwing things around. He felt that this was better than using the disciplinary process because he didn't do it often, and was simply trying to increase performance. Crazy, but it was okay in his mind because it actually worked in most cases.
  • While I agree with everyone, I wonder why, if you have an EAP, you can't just remind him of it, and let him decide if it is something that he needs. This is something that my company strongly suggests. I just want to clarify what I am reading. By doing this, you may be setting yourself up for ADA issues? I definitely think there needs to be written discplinary action.
  • This brings up a question I have always pondered. Since this was a very public incident and probably widely discussed, will anything be said publicly about what steps were taken to deal with the employee or will it all be privately handled and hush hush.

    Sometimes I feel there is a need for public acknowledgement of public incidents. While I would not go into details I could envision the President or someone up high saying something like this at a staff meeting.

    "As many of you may know, there was an unfortunate incident last week in which VP Joe made a mistake. I want you to know that this incident has been addressed and we are confident that this will be the last incident of that kind. We at ABC company value a safe, productive environment where all employees can voice their opinions and express feelings in a positive, professional manner."

    VP Joe might say next "To all of you who witnessed my actions last week let me say how deeply I regret what I did. I hope to earn your trust and respect and I am actively working on controlling my emotions. Its great to be passionate but what I did was unacceptable and innappropriate. Please accept my apology."


    This may not be standard HR practice but it makes sense to me. By not publicly acknowledging a public incident there is no closure and employees may be left wondering what if anything was done in response. Again, I am not saying you go into the specifics but rather there is some general acknowledgment of what happened, that the incident does not reflect the true nature of the employee and the company, and that steps are being taken to address the problem.

    Call me crazy.

    Paul
  • I think that's a great thought. We try to do that here, also. Not the same thing, but, for example, we moved to a new neighborhood and a week later someone was shot (not an employee) right outside our building in the wee hours of the morning. Our sign was shown on the news. We acknowledged it to the employees and discussed safety issues. I think that employees like to be "kept in the know".
  • The problem that I have run into is that too often in dealing with inappropriate behaviors such as the VP's, instead of merely documenting the response, the supervisor will offer up that perhaps the EE is depressed, for example, and should contact the EAP. As soon as the word "depressed" is uttered, it could be proven that the company considered the VP to have a disability and subject to ADA. I suppose that it is possible to simply list EAP along with other resources for the VP to use, but that is a VERY fine line, and one that takes a great deal of finesse to traverse.
  • >I think that referring the VP to EAP will pave the way for an ADA
    >claim as Don suggested. I would focus on the observable behavior,
    >deal with that, and let the pseudo-diagnosis stuff alone. Believe it
    >or not, I knew a plant superintendent who utilized violent tantruming
    >as his intervention of last resort to motivate employees. He would
    >call the EE into his office, then proceed to start screaming and
    >throwing things around. He felt that this was better than using the
    >disciplinary process because he didn't do it often, and was simply
    >trying to increase performance. Crazy, but it was okay in his mind
    >because it actually worked in most cases.

    He must have been a big fan of the "Scared Straight" approach.


  • There are a lot of fine lines here and, yes, it will take some finesse to work through the issues. The start point is the CEO because it takes that persons backing for any road that you go down. You should talk to the CEO about the damage that the VP's actions do to the company but because of his value you desire to make it work out but need his support to do so. If he/she is smart the response will be that you get the support which should mean that the CEO takes the lead in fixing the problem. You might want to call your EAP and get their read on what is going on so that you at least have the perspective of a mental health professional as you go forward. Considering using the EAP for counseling, whether on a voluntary or under condition of continued employment basis does not mean that it becomes an ADA issue. There are lots of behavior issues that do not rise to the level of a disability, but even if this one did there are no court cases that say that an employer has to put up with abusive behavior in order to accomodate to a disability, so the accomadation that you end up will probably be your assistance to help him deal with the problem whatever they might be, something you would do anyway. Yes, this takes some finesse, and the first one is to get the CEO to take ownership of the problem, not you. The next is the counseling issue and how that is approached and you need the input of a mental health professional to help you with it.
  • This thread is useful not just for the answers but for the process by which the issues have been framed.Regards,Mike Maslanka
  • You're right, Mike -- this has been a great discussion. Has anyone mentioned Bob Knight, the chair-throwing basketball coach who was fired (but not until he started losing too many games)?

    As for EAPs, I remember an Employment Law Letter article a while back where the EEOC made some sort of statement saying bosses can refer employees to an EAP without regarding them as disabled.

    James Sokolowski
    Senior Editor
    M. Lee Smith Publishers
  • I agree with Mike...you all have been great in sharing your thought processes on this issue. That's so much better than a one-liner answer and gives me support to defend my recommnedations to the CEO. What a great benefit!

    Thanks to all!

    Pati

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