Slashdot Mirror
Getting Company Owners To Follow Their Own Rules?
techmage writes "Recently we had an issue at our small company that resulted in the loss of a lot of important data. To prevent it from happening again, we created a company-wide policy that all computers would return to IT to have their contents backed up, and the computers would be formatted and reloaded for the next user. Consistently the owners of the company break this and other policies we set up to prevent data loss, theft, etc. How do I get through to the bosses that when they break with the policies, they are potentially shooting the company in the foot?"
Oh, dear, yes. The "unemployment ballet" is nasty. A professional bureaucrat that wants to fire you will record every misstep, collect them into a file, give you a "warning" and a "recovery plan", then do everything bureaucratically possible to poison your work. Simple shock and disbelief at how ridiculous the recorded "violations" are will not save you. You need a thick folder with documented mis-steps, preferably by the bureaucrat trying to fire you, with it all documented. Sign _nothing_ that admits wrong-doing if you can avoid it: make sure that you have counterletters recorded, and get copies of everything.
And start looking for new work if this is going on. I've had this happen, where a senior supervisor blamed the engineers for his laptop problems when he absolutely refused to swap it or surrender it for recovery, always had his disk overflowing, refused to patch, etc. He just wanted us to "fix it!" when it broke.
I fully agree. Employers don't generally win unemployment compensation hearings, even when they are correct. In many cases, the employer has a policy to appeal ANY unemployment claim, just to set up a few additional hoops for the employee to jump through. Most of the time, the employers don't even show up for the hearing. As a result, the state labor department deals with a LOT of junk appeals. Even when the employer shows up, the burden of proof is upon THEM and most of the time, they aren't up to the task.
I know of a guy who was thrown out during some kind of bizarre purge. The company had a change in management and this guy was clearly not part of the plan. So the company tried to cobble together some sort of justification. However, their schedule for firing him did not allow for collecting enough excuses. The purge worked in such a way that the guy's boss had already been let go, so actual facts of the employee's performance were in short supply. What little they had was wrong.
So of course, the employer appeals the unemployment claim. The hearing is held and the employer is absent. After losing by default, THEN the employer appeals to re-open the case. The employee's witnesses are subpoenaed and the day of the second hearing arrives. By this time, the employer has engaged some kind of unemployment compensation management firm to try and win the case. Upon seeing the employee's counter claim and witness list, the consultant tells the judge, "Upon review, this case does not rise to the standard necessary to establish termination for cause. We withdraw our appeal."
Considering how routine these shenanigans are, is it any wonder the employers usually lose?