Employee writes everything down "for her records"

Celeste Blackburn SPHR

In response to a recent post on the [URL="http://www.hrhero.com/hl/articles/2013/06/21/finding-the-right-way-to-deal-with-less-than-ideal-employees/"]HR HeroLine blog[/URL], one commenter posted:[INDENT] [quote]I would like some direction on how to handle an employee that knowingly writes down everything the other employees do, “for her records”. This employee says she does this to protect herself. We don’t want to be seen as retalitory, but sometimes the situation is difficult to address in a positive manner.
The employee has turned a happy working environment into a cold, stay to yourself, don’t want to visit type of workplace because we know she is taking notes on what we say.
Any suggestions?[/quote] [/INDENT]I thought the HR pros on the forum may have some insight.

NaeNae55

We had an employee write everything down (like times other employees went to break etc). I pointed out that what other employees do is none of her business unless it impacts her directly. Then I asked if it was and where.

After a brief discussion where she could not prove any misconduct by others that impacted her directly I pointed out our policies for reporting unacceptable employee behavior. In other words, she should report any unacceptable behavior through channels as outlined in our policies, not just record it.

I also spoke about the amount of time she was spending recording everything (she was an hourly employee.) I told her she was free to make any notes she wanted on her break, or off working hours, but her time during working hours was ours to direct.

I pointed out that she was creating a hostile work environment when employees felt they had no privacy as every action was being watched and recorded (with, they assumed, a purpose intended to cause them harm). Our policies specifically address behaving professionally and respectfully towards other employees so we treated this as a warning and the behavior stopped.

cnghr

Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but my first question would have to be, what does the employee think she needs to "protect herself" from? And also, I also find the comment about not wanting to be seen as retaliatory kind of interesting. I mean, if this person is keeping notes on what everybody does and says and if nobody is doing or saying anything wrong/illegal to begin with, then why would it be considered retaliatory to tell her to tell her that it's unacceptable?

When we have had people who needed to be counselled about something like that, we have handled it in much the same way as Nae. So far that has worked out well for us.