Unfairly discriminated against ????
imjustme
6 Posts
I have a co-worker in my HR department that started a relationship with another co-worker. The person she was seing was a supervisor and slowly but surely management found out about the relationship. In the mean time the Supervisor given his notice to leave so as to not cause any problems. Unfortunately Sylvie had befriended another employee that was just a laborer. After cell phone bills came in it was discovered that the girl I work with was talking to this other employee. She was then written up and put on probation for unprofessional behavior in her position and not doing her work. The assumption of her not doing her work was based on the number of cell phone calls. There were 83 phone calls from the employee. Unfortunately they did not look at the times of the phone calls because only 18 were actually to her desk during working hours over a 45 day period. The total was less than 5 minutes per call. They also wrote her up for inappropriate relationship with a coworker. They gave her rules that she has to abide by to stay employed. She can not have any relationship with any co workers after hours. There are also a few other rules but to her are unimportant. She comes to me in serious distress because our Supervisor whom wrote her up is married to a Supervisor in the same position as the person she was seeing. Before they were married they started seeing eachother when each were in the same positions as my co-worker and the person she was seeing. Our supervisor also made it well known before anyone found out about the relationships that she did not like either of the employee's. Now neither employee works here for their own reasons and Sylvie is left with the unfairness and continuous questions of confidentiality. She has had Salaried payroll taken away from her and is continually questioned about things that she has never ever breached. The turmoil that she is having a problem with is that upper management is worried about confidential items leaking or people that do not need to know find out certain things. Our Supervisor continuously comes down here asking Sylvie if she has received certain write ups on people or if she has talked to someone about this. These are all items that the Supervisor has no reason to know anything about other than her husband only talks to her about personnell issues and thus the confidentiality rights of our employees is broken. I feel bad for this girl..she is tears almost daily fealing unfairly accused of something she has never done.(Breach Confidences) Why am writing is because she is in so much turmoil...she says she is going to see a lawyer. What could our company be looking at if she does decide to sue. What should I do in my position as a HR professional? Should my loyalty be to the coworker whome talked to me or to the management of the company? We have no policy what so ever regarding employee relationships.
Comments
As to your personal loyalty, only you can decide that.
It is NEVER a good idea for supervisors to have relationships with employees. There are always questions of fairness and favortism.
Relationships between co workers are very difficult to control and impossible for your company to put the condition of not having a relationship with a coworker after hours.
It also appears that somewhere along the line, this employee has her loyalty placed in question. It is because of the relationship with the supervisor or has she done something else to cause this apparent mistrust from management? Could it be a setup from the other supervisor? Many unanswered questions.
Our fraternization policy states supervisors are strictly prohibited from having relationships with employees they supervise. If a relationship should develop, then the responsibility is placed on the supervisor to let management know. The two employees will be separated. We let them decide among themselves who will be reassigned. If they can't or won't decide, then both have to leave employment.
Sounds, at the very least, a very bad work environment is being created because of the lack of a policy regarding romantic involvement.
Our write-ups include a section for an EE response. If your co-worker has a bone to pick, it probably is with the comments about inappropriate relationships. For this "violation," she should add her comments about their not being a policy to violate and that the restrictions are unconscienable and unenforceable. Are they worried that she would somehow inflate this EEs payroll or something?
As to the accusations of being a source of the leaks, who can really say. I know you believe her, but when pillow talk is a part of the equation, who really knows. Payroll information may have been discussed with the supervisor she used to have the relationship with and with the EE she is currently seeing. You do not know what kind of information is circulating and what kind of evidence management may have about where it originated.
Let's face it, some positions have a higher duty to adhere to certain guidelines than others. It is not unusual for a company to be very protective of payroll information and to act quickly and decisively when breaches occur.
If the EE is worried about her job, she should sit down with the supervisor and discuss her commitement to the company and her understanding about the confidential nature of the information she stewards and how strongly she feels about protecting it. Take some pro-active steps to help solve the problems.
As to your own loyalty, if you have higher levels of responsibility in your sites, I would lean to protecting the company, but as Parabeagle said, only you can decide that one.
Be open to other perspectives, they may be wrong, but do not jump to hasty conclusions because of working relationships.