Refusal to sign confidentiality agreement

CTAYLOR

We recently updated our confidentiality agreement,per our attorney's advise. One particular employee has not signed and returned to HR. Three written requests have been made, all employees were given 21 days to review and sign.
Can we put the employee on probation, ask to leave premises until signed, terminate the employee?

What are our options?

mwild31

Hopefully one of the legal eagles from the forum will comment on your question, but in my mind, again I'm totally open to people disagreeing with me, if they don't sign the confidentiality and it's mandatory for all employees to sign one in order to continue working with the company, then you should be able to use any of the three options you listed. Also, make sure to talk to the employee in question prior to following up with some sort of discipline, because they could have simply misplaced/forgotten the form or they may have tossed it not thinking it was important.

Steve McElfresh

CTaylor:

My read would be that IF you are an at-will employer and IF you have not compromised that position with this employee by other actions, following any of your three plans should be possible (of course, if you need to be confident, you need to talk to your legal counsel).

Of course, before you do any of that, it is important to sit down and ask the person what might be going on. And then listen and ask open-ended questions. I have often seen an employee's resentment about such requirements melt away when someone takes the time and shows the consideration to listen carefully to their concerns -- even when the final answer is "I understand how you might feel that way, but it is still going to be required of everyone, including you."

As a side note, I would urge that any time you are asked to administer a mandatory process (new agreement, training, other event, etc.), you . . .

1. have an eyeball to eyeball conversation with the Pres. that says, "Now, we WILL terminate anyone that doesn't comply, even if it is (fill in the most valuable sales person, researcher, executive or whatever), right?" And
2. the materials you issue with the announcement make abundantly clear that this is in fact mandatory.

Regards,

Steve

Steve McElfresh, PhD
Principal
HR Futures

408.605.1870

dolores

Echo your advice. The greatest lesson I learned in law school dealt with a case (don't remember the name) where Justice Learned Hand, I believe, opined that people are much more inclined to obey rules and regulations if they understand the reasoning behind it.

scottorr

I have dealt with this issue before. We used to suspend ees that didn't sign the forms. They would receive three written warnings and the third stated that if it was not signed and returned to HR by a particular date that they would be suspended. 9 out of 10 times the employee just lost the form and was too embarassed to let us know. If they still refused to sign the form after three days, they would be terminated. In my ten years of experience, it has never gotten to that point.