Retaliation ??

HR IN AL

I have an employee who is a constant troublemaker and is constantly being complained about by others although we have never been able to pin anything on her. She and another employee got into verbal argument last week and troublemaker is saying that other employee threated to kill her. Here is the problem. When the supervisor heard the commotion and came up , He told them both to be quiet and took them to office (where I was on vacation of course) and they were talked to. I come in MOnday and she has put a written statement on my desk saying the other person threatened her and she says the Supervisor heard it. My supervisor says all he heard was them arguing and did not hear the threat. She is calling the supervisor a liar. We are going to talk to her again stating that he didn't hear. I mentioned to my plant manager and he said that she is being insuboridinate by calling supervisor a liar. He wants me to suspend her for it. I am not comfortable with this. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Sometimes your thoughts get me thinking in different direction.

Paul in Cannon Beach

What do you know about the other employee who allegedly made the threat? Are they hot-headed or prone to making threats? Have you spoken to them and documented their side of the incident?

Was anyone else around to hear this? Do you believe your supervisor?

Sorry for all the questions.

HR IN AL

The other person hasn't had any other issues with anyone ever but the troublemaker. I am speaking with her after lunch. She was also talked the day it happened. No one else was around to hear. We are production environment so it was kinda loud.

I totally believe my supervisor but don't agree with my Plant Manager with suspending her.

Paul in Cannon Beach

Why not?

What stops you from getting rid of this employee who you describe as a "constant troublemaker"?

sonny

Because it is word against word unless the other ee admits to the threat. I would not suspend her. I would give them both oral or writtten warnings regarding the commotion. Just me. .

KSR6450

HRinAL - Clarification for me...
You are asking if you can suspend the 'troublemaker' for insubordination against her boss because she called him a liar, correct? You are not wanting to suspend the employee that the 'troublemaker' accused of making threats?

Okay the lack of sleep is getting to me.
I agree with Paul. Won't hear me say that too often.

HR IN AL

Boss wants to suspend the employee who is calling Supervisor a liar.

Paul in Cannon Beach

I guess I am still wondering why this troublemaker keeps their job.

HR IN AL

Because although we have had complaints we have nothing concrete on her. Nothing that can be proved. We wrote her up and told her if she had any more complaints we were going to terminate her employment.

Paul in Cannon Beach

I think you do have a situation where a retaliation claim could be made. You also have a difficult employee who would not think twice about getting back at you if she percieves she has been treated badly.

She would argue "I was threatened and when I made this known to my supervisors they retaliated against me and suspended me."

Hopefully your interview with the other employee will shed some light on this. Otherwise I think you could have some difficulty defending your position.

HR IN AL

Thanks Paul. That is what I was trying to get my Plant Manager to understand. I talked with other girl. She said she never threatened the other girl. Said she just told her how she was "a sorry excuse for a human being". We have given them both a written warning and that if we have any other issues between them they will both be suspended and if it happens again, they will be terminated. Hopefully, they can play nice. I thought I had left kindergarten behind.

Paul in Cannon Beach

We had an employee who was very difficult to work with. He had some ability but he also had a knack for rubbing people the wrong way and getting into conflict. He was smart enough to be difficult to deal with.

For several months I had to manage him very carefully while our supervisors cried out for him to be fired. The thing was, he was from a protected class and he also had an ongoing injury (not workers comp). I didnt want a retaliation claim so I felt I had to be very shrewd in my dealings with him.

Eventually, he slipped up and violated our policies in a major way. That was our opportunity to remove him from the organization which we did. I was happy with how things turned out.

I am still in contact with this person. He came from a difficult home and I would like to see him succeed in life. Even though we fired him, he left here feeling we had treated him fairly.

Its unlikely you will be as fortunate as we were given the individual you are dealing with sounds like a bad apple but I would recommend that you watch carefully for your opportunity to remove this troublemaker from your organization.

davids

I think you have a couple of things going on here and need to treat them separately. If the supervisor says he did not hear the threat and the employee has no evidence that he, in fact, did hear it, then calling the supervisor a liar is a discipliable offense. If, based on your company's discipline policy and practice suspension is the appropriate level of discipline, then you have a good case to discipline.

Investigating whether the threat actually occured is a separate issue from the "insuborination" of calling the supervisor a liar. If the employee is maintaining the threat occured, what evidence does she have. Has she filed a report with the police? You should investigate this allegation on its own.

A word to the wise, I would kick the habit of referring to the employee as "troublemaker." Although you are speaking among friends on the forum, you never know when referring to the employee as a troublemaker will come back to bite you. Also, even if the employee's photo is in the dictionary under "troublemaker", it doesn't mean she is making things up in this instance. I counsel supervisors all of the time not to assume an employee is guilty just because the employee was guilty of a similar infraction in the past. Even if the employee was guilty the last 50 times, investigate the 51st infraction fairly and without bias. Rushing to judgement before you have all of the facts leads to lawsuits.

ACU Frank

Safe to assume this is a non-union environment?

Paul in Cannon Beach

Good point, David. That was very similar to what I was experience with our employee. After a few bad experiences, many of the supervisors here (in my opinion) just wrote him off and he could do no right after that. It wasn't fair and it became an obstacle to this employee's ability to ever succeed.

Even employees who cause trouble deserve a fair process.

jmcaa

I just want to caution you in dealing with this complaint about one employee threatening to kill the other. About 1 month ago, an employee with the Fayette County School System had been having problems/words with another employee. He contacted the HR dept. to complain that the employee threatened to kill him with a knife. The HR dept. (this was a Friday) took his complaint, asked him if he thought he could return to work with the threatening employee the following Monday and the employee said yes.

Come Monday morning this employee who had been threatened showed up at work with a gun and killed the other worker who had threatened him the previous Friday.

First thing the HR person should have done is separate the employees. After an employee has been threatened with death, they should NOT be working together until an investigation has been completed.

Add to that the employee (who had been threatened) had tried many times to transfer to another school but had been denied....even though there were job openings. I wouldn't be surprised if a lawsuit is filed in the future by both sides.

Now 2 families are broken and torn apart.

Lesson - take EVERY threat seriously until proven untrue.

mandrews

You mentioned in the initial string that you have received other complaints about this employee. That leads me to believe that wherever they go trouble follows and that tells me that you have an employee that causes disruption in the workplace and is creating a hostile and/or offensive work environment for everyone else (and that includes the Supervisor she's calling a liar). It seems to me that you have perfectly legal and defendable grounds for terminating this employee so long as you have documented all the complaints received.

debboyer

Following along with all posts it takes me back 3 years when it was finally decided at our office to terminate once and for all the troubling employee. Although she was an accurate worker her attitude was more than could be handled. They had let her dicate to all managers in this location and our other locations what she would produce and when it would be produced.

If progressive discipline is being used I would document, document, document and rid yourself of the troubled worker. It never ceases to amaze me that in the tough ecomonic times that the entire US is facing you still have immature people that want to stir the hornets nest. In our case it was the most positive managment decision that had been made a very long time. We did not fight the unemployment and were never so happy to be rid of that employee!

Sharon McKnight SPHR

Parothead IL -- Welcome back to the Forum, glad you could join us! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to let us know.

:welcome:

Paul in Cannon Beach

HR in AL, how was this resolved?

HR IN AL

We documented the whole thing. Told the employee who is deemed to have caused the problem that if she was involved in another altercation with another employee that she would be terminated. She disagreed at first but after going over all the complaints we have had about her, she quieted down. We made her sign the documentation where she was told this. So far it has been all quiet.

Paul in Cannon Beach

Another example of the value of good documentation!