[NOTE: The following was originally in reply to this post and the one immediately after, both critical of the RECF response posted in that thread. I should have started a new thread at that point instead of taking the things further off topic. I was not being sensitive to the original post, which was extremely painful I am sorry about that.]
I have some thoughts, but I wanted to start by saying thanks to Amy and everyone else who spoke up despite the obvious pain they needed to relive. I hadn’t said that anywhere, and it should be said.
Bear with me for a moment while I share some background. As a hiring manager at my job, I needed to go through a lot of training about employee rights, bias, and privacy. I expected it to be similar content to other harassment prevention training I had, but I quickly realized I had a lot to learn about what management can and cannot do legally when faced with bad behavior in the workplace. Most employment law protects the employee. Appropriately, IMHO, and probably not enough, but nonetheless, management must be incredibly careful when screening potential employees and disciplining existing ones.
Having learned what I learned, I believe the RECF response thus far is exactly what it needs to be.
Dan Mantz posted within two hours apologizing and committing to investigate and follow up. Today he confirmed the initial account, apologized again, and stated unambiguously this behavior is unacceptable. More importantly, he described a concrete plan to prevent this from happening again:
This may not sound like much. On reading about those break room conversations, I am sure many would like to hear that people were disciplined or fired. If that did happen to anyone, divulging that would breach privacy. Moreover, it is very difficult to terminate an employee over a single incident, especially if it involved policies that were not communicated to and acknowledged by the employee.
That’s why I am happy to see the training put in place for all staff. Training like that always includes a test and, importantly, acknowledgement by the employee that they know and understand the policy. With that acknowledgement in place, policies are easier to enforce. At a minimum, people are more careful in the workplace after making that acknowledgement.
WRT hiring practices, I can say with experience that it is virtually impossible to address this when interviewing candidates. You need to keep the interview very focused the specific requirements of the position when assessing a candidate’s suitability. Aside from a criminal history, you cannot really delve into an employee’s past. In training we were told we shouldn’t even google the candidate, as that could become the basis for legal action. All of this is, of course, to protect employees from bias, but the side effect you cannot screen out jerks.
Anyway, sorry for the long post, but thought this was worth sharing. I am personally amazed and shocked at the IFI’s responses, especially compared with the RECF response here.
P.S. Time will tell, of course, whether these actions are a one-time crisis response or part of a real plan for the future. At the moment, though, I believe it is the correct response.