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:
another good bit of info McCann discusses - can the NFL fire Burress for his actions?
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.
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.
Posted by: Kate | Tuesday, 16 December 2008 at 05:36 AM