Confidentiality or Company Guy/Gal?
scottorr
599 Posts
I always find it a struggle when an employee comes to you with confidential information about themselves or about a co-worker. On one hand you have the company's best interest at stake and on the other you want to maintain the image that ees can trust you and come to you. Recently one of my coworkers was told a piece of information about a supervisor. My co-worked shared the info with the VP of HR. She took action. The ee that shared the info felt betrayed that the info was suppose to confidential. The ee says she will never share info again with this co-worker of mine. How do you guys deal with this? The ee name was not revealed but it was figured out by the situation in which the situation was discovered.
Comments
The biggest problem is deciding when to protect the individual through confidentiality and when to protect the company through disclosure or action. I too have learned the hard way, only pass on information when I don't care if my superiors will take action or not. If no action is necessary, keep it to myself. We must decide to whom do we owe ultimate accountibility? The individual or the company? Remember, the company signs the paycheck. Ethics 101. Not always a clearcut answer.
In instances where there could be a liablity if the problem isn't dealt with, such as harassment, threat of violence, or theft, I tell the employee I can't ignore the situation and thank them for coming to me. I never promise total
confidentiality, but let employees know that HR is there to help.
Good luck,
Dutch2
The one exception, and this is stated in our harassment policies, is that if we have a situation serious enough we believe we must act for legal or protective reasons, or if we see a pattern developed by a supervisor, for example, of sexual harassment, the company will take action, and make every effort to maintain confidentiality, but it can not be guaranteed.
Our employees respect our approach.
The folks in my office (not just HR) often say "cover your ears, Lori!" when they are talking about something that they KNOW will raise my HR hackles. (What is a hackle, anyway?) I just refuse, and tell them that if they KNOW I don't approve of it, then don't say it. It shouldn't matter whether I'm in the room or not!
In addition to being labelled a "Pollyanna", I am also (playfully) referred to as a spoilsport and a party pooper. But hey, as I mentioned in another post, my favorite label for an HR department from my previous company is the "Conscience of the Company".
(Sorry, my mother was an English teacher - both a curse and a blessing!)
Don't you sometimes wish you weren't considered the conscience of the company?To always have to be on the "proper, correct or right" side of everything; find someway to be upbeat, always encouraging and coaching. We always seem to be the playground monitor. We get beat down sometimes too and it's hard to find someplace to replenish. Guess I'm just having a bad week.
I just posted elsewhere that I grew up in Omaha. My mom was a teacher too. She now owns a tutoring business. Had I asked her the "hackles" question, she would have said "here's the dictionary - look it up!"
Saw your response on the other thread about growing up in Omaha and living in Phoenix now. I keep getting farther south as the years go by - spent most of my childhood in Minnesota. I find the winters in Omaha positively mild compared to what I grew up with!
I also get quite a kick out of how little snow it takes to get school called off here - I don't remember a "snow day" in Minneapolis until I was a junior in high school and we had a full-blown blizzard!
psrcello
If we miss the snow, Flagstaff is less than 2 hours away. All the snow we want and we don't have to shovel! x:-)