So, Say an Employee of Yours Shoots Himself in the Leg... Your Response Would Be?

sometimes, people do really dumb things and wind up in the news. oh, people like Plaxico Burress for example.

hopefully you've not been under a rock the past few days and (at minimum) his name is ringing a bell with you. but if you have been holed up in some cave, read about this NFL pro shooting himself in the leg here and here. the latter link in particular had some good tidbits from an employee relations/employer branding standpoint - because really, what are you to do if you are the employer of a visible (or not!) person who has done something incredibly stupid that's landed them AND you all over the news? would you think about your employment brand? i mean, come on! think of the possible taint! could you continue selling "the experience" of working at your company? you, a world-class organization full of the best and brightest in the business? it's kinda tough to say that with a straight face if your [employment] brand is all over the news, isn't it? yep, i do think that there is such a thing as bad press.

Michael McCann, a law professor at Boston College, who wrote the SI.com article i linked to, raises a nice and simple point about how employee conduct affects the integrity of the employer's brand. and the NFL even has policy addressing this. says McCann on the policy:

"NFL personnel [including players are] obligated to avoid any conduct detrimental to the integrity of, and public confidence in, the NFL... Violation of the policy need not entail a crime or even a civil offense; all that is required is 'detrimental' conduct as interpreted by the commissioner, who acts as the policy's judge and jury."

another good bit of info McCann discusses - can the NFL fire Burress for his actions?

"Yes. Of all the major pro sports leagues, the NFL... can cut players for performance reasons, business reasons and also if a player misbehaves: Paragraph 11 of the standard player contract notes that a team may terminate a player's contract if the player has 'engaged in personal conduct reasonably judged by Club to adversely affect or reflect on Club.'"

now, i'm not a policy whore. i hate having to cite, reference or enforce policies, actually. i'm from the school of thought that we should treat our each other as adults, and expect employees in turn to act as adults. sure, you have policies, but they just serve as a CYA kind of thing, in my book. maybe that makes me a shitty HR person - you can be the judge of that - but i'm just not one of those kinds of HR ladies. rules, laws and policies in and of themselves don't impact behavior. influence and communication impacts behavior. right? but this! this is actually a perfect example of why sometimes you do need policies, and you better believe first thing in the morning i'll be double checking my own firm's standards of conduct and handbook to see what we say about detriment to the integrity of our brand.

sure, it would be nice to hope that the NFL, or any employer, could make the case that they had just cause to take the actions they took (say, letting someone go who is impacting the integrity of their [employment] brand) regardless of what they have in their policies or employment contracts... but this is America folks and we love suing one another. and don't forget, we're in a recession. times are going to continue to get rough and people will get desperate as you mess around with their paychecks. so if someone at your org does something really dumb like shooting him/herself in the leg? do what you need to do to protect your employment brand, separate the organization as quickly and cleanly as you can from their actions and in this case, have a damn good policy (plus process of the employee acknowledging such!) in place to support whatever actions you end up taking. it may be just the kind of CYA thing you need.

Comments

[Kate]

What is the most effective way to educate emplyees about this kind of policy? We find that just putting things our for employees to read accomplishes nothing.