Slashdot Mirror
UK Executive 'Forced Out of Job' For Posting CV Online
First time accepted submitter sweetpea86 writes "An executive who uploaded his CV to LinkedIn was forced to quit his job because he ticked a box stating he was interested in 'career opportunities'. John Flexman is demanding hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation from his former employer, gas exploration firm BG Group, where he earned £68,000 pounds a year as a Graduate and Development Manager. He is thought to be the first person in the UK to bring a case for constructive dismissal. The case highlights a grey area around employees' use of social networks such as LinkedIn. According to Kate Hodgkiss, Partner at law firm DLA Piper, employers have every right to seek to protect confidential company information by restricting LinkedIn and other profiles, but cannot prevent employees from looking for a new job. The news echoes a report in December that a Californian Twitter user was being sued for $340,000 by his former employer for taking his online followers with him when he switched jobs. PhoneDog launched legal proceedings against Noah Kravitz, seeking damages of $2.50 a month per follower for eight months."
If employers can post openings for your position on job sites, you can certainly check a box indicating general interest in careers-at-large.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Duh, they're called followers, they would have went with the author creating the content even if he changed his twitter account.
I have a small network of friends and associates on LinkedIn, they know I am happy where I am at, but I always listen to new opportunities that's how I got where I am. Ususally I will pass on the info to someone else I know that's looking.
However if you never listen to opportunities, people never think of you as someone to talk to about them.
When the time comes that you need a job, your network has withered and you're stuck looking at official postings, half of which are already wired for a certain candidate but have to be announced for legal reasons.
This kind of discrimination always existed, the news is that company in question actually admitted it as a dismissal cause, instead of the usual 'performance' cause.
Could have been within the company too.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
1. Getting contacted by an executive at another company for a joint venture.
2. Getting a new degree.
3. Getting contacted by an investor.
This is as ridiculous as firing someone for racism because they put "enjoys participating Civil War reenactments" on their Facebook page.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/nov/09/uk-borders-constructive-dismissal-lawyers
Quite a prominent one as well.
sued for $340,000 by his former employer for taking his online followers with him when he switched jobs.
Then the company is too stupid to survive.
This is happened over and over with celebrity chefs. Smart companies create a fictitious character, then promote that, not a real person.
If you have to use a real person, get a multi-year agreement that specifies what you get in return for royalities. Yes, you will still have to keep paying them after they leave, but you can continue to use their image/persona.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
It's similar to a resume. (I had to google the acronym to figure out what this Slashdot topic was about.)
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
To play devil's advocate, the employer could claim that the very fact that an important executive was looking to leave could give the impression to outsiders that something bad was going on in the company and that could result in a loss to their business. Perhaps his interest in leaving this company turned away some of the customers or investors or lowered other employees' morale.
Remember when Steve Jobs was doing nothing more than going on a medical leave, it adversely affected Apple's stock price. Of course the company is this case would have to PROVE that suffered or stood to suffer a loss.
I wonder if they'll go as far as trying to find out if he posted it while at work, and how much that might matter.
no He is claiming constructive dismissal they didn't fire him he is claiming they forced him to resign (there is no cap for constructive dismissal as opposed to a bog standard unfair dismissal.
£70 K a year is 3X the median salary in the UK also his title is "Manager"
Except the BG Group's stock price has actually continued an upward trend since before Mr. Flexman was "forced to quit", and has actually risen by $100 / share in the past 5 days.
Yahoo Finance - BG Group
Seems as though they would have a hard time proving that Mr. Flexman leaving has negatively impacted them. Sure there are additional considerations, including the obvious Streisand effect that could have led to this change, but it is obvious that they did not see a mass exodus or a decrease on brand confidence with their investors.
Thirty four characters live here.
Agreed - Unless the twitter account was under the name of the company. If it's under his personal name E.G "My name is bob, follow me on twitter as bob" shouldn't entitle a company to it.
In the case in question the guy was hired to do marketing stuff and the company name *was part* of the account. When the company name is "PhoneDog" and the twitter account is something like "PhoneDog_Bob" I think you can make an argument that the account was work related. Given the use of the company name in the account name I think in this case he should create a new personal account, announce it, and expect those only interested in him personally switch. Letting the company keep the old account.
I'll go you a step further. He may have done this via a company computer, thus violating the company's AUP.
I think it's stupid, too, but that's the devil's advocate position.
I8-D
I, like many people, treat the "you could get fired if your boss thinks you're looking for another job" as kind of axiomatic, but what's the employer motivation for this?
I'll exclude poor performance, where the employee basically comes in and does nothing but use the company PC to create resumes and cover letters, faxes them with the company fax machine and then goes home, his current job's work undone, mainly because that's being fired for poor performance, the cause of the poor performance is immaterial.
"Because I have to hire a new employee" -- OK, you just *fired* your current employee, you're going to hire someone else anyway, and with zero cooperation from the existing employee who is now job hunting AND doing it while enjoying unemployment benefits because "looking for a job" isn't termination for cause.
"I don't want them to take my secrets/customers" -- the good ones already have your secrets, customer lists, etc. Firing them now gives them moral justification to utilize these in their new job.
I'm lost on where it benefits the employer other than vague claims of weak performance (working well enough not to be reprimanded but not at peak output) or nearly unmeasurable claims of impacting morale.
About the only rationale that seems to make any sense is pure spite -- the employer is pissed that a good employee (high output at sub-market wages) has to be replaced with one with unknown or only average output at market prices, and firing the employee is a good way to sow chaos in their life and possibly make their new job search more complicated.
First off, when an rank and file employee doesn't show up for work, investors don't care. When Founders, and Chief of-what-ever's don't show up for work, the rules change. Investors vote by shorting their stock. It causes the "wealth cream-skimmer types" to take notice; examples are Boards of Directors, and CEO's along with their attentive minions.
I don't know that much about UK Employment Law, but I'm on the receiving end of US Employment Law. Given that Noah Kravitz has a fairly competent lawyer, PhoneDog will get to pay for this waste of the Courts time. This is just harassment of an ex-employee by a corporation that has to pay for some large egos that are clueless about increasing revenues.
In a company like BG on £68k/annum he's not an important executive. Having worked for them for several years (but not since 2002) I know from the pay/job title that he's upper middle management. Also when it comes to customers then BG isn't a typical corporation. They have a monopoly on the UK's gas/electric infrastructure although they do also work with other firms in projects for things like natural gas exploration. I'd be amazed if this isn't about managment cliques, he wasn't popular with one, they went digging for dirt, they found his profile, and they've tried to use that to shaft him. With any luck it's about to backfire quite spectacularly.
You know there is more to life than only the employers point of view.
Employment is a 2-way street for both parties. Good employees bend over backwards for their employers and realize that their own needs do not matter to the employer and that its needs need to be addressed. Likewise a good employer realized employees have lives outside of work and that good talent needs a reason to stay loyal and will treat him/her with respect.
When one party only cares for itself that is when you have problems. Employers got a free ride from 2008 - 2011 and liked it. We got a free ried from 1998 - 2001. A correction is needed and employers need to stop whinning when they are the ones who advertise at-will-employment in their job postings who overwork, never give vacations, expect 70 hours a week, underpay, and all of the sudden act shock that employees are begining to look elsewhere as market conditions improve. Shocked! Well some programmers who wanted 90,000 a year and called in sick once a month got shafted too after 9-11!
Seems only fair that a good balance is needed. Employers need to stop thinking only of themselves and plan for things like this. Executives leaving is part of the job as they would not hesistate to fire an underperforming one themselves.
http://saveie6.com/
I have never gotten any pussy off that website, so I classify it is totally useless.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
> To play devil's advocate, the employer could claim that the very
> fact that an important executive was looking to leave could give
> the impression to outsiders that something bad was going on in
> the company and that could result in a loss to their business.
There's an old saying that everything is for sale. I am not trying to sell my house, but if someone walked up to me on the street and offered me $1,000,000 for it, the next words out of my mouth would be "Great! I'll tell my wife we're moving."
In that sense, damn near everyone is willing to look at new career opportunities. You'd be stupid not to. No one should read that much into it. The CEO could be getting $20 million a year, but if another company walked up with an offer of $50 million, damn right he'd be "interested".
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Invariably in these situations, there is more to be found if you scratch the surface a bit.
Perhaps he was sleeping with the boss's wife. Perhaps he's an obnoxious, abrasive prat. The fact that he's suing (instead of just moving on) suggests as much.
The lawsuit eventuated because they used an inappropriate dialog in getting rid of him. Ironically, if he had just taken it on the chin and moved on, his career would not have been significantly impacted. The fact that he is suing has ended his career.
Karma's a bitch like that sometimes.
FTFA: "BG Group ... accused him of including confidential information in his CV, such as details about how he had reduced the firm's rate of staff attrition."
His dedication to this goal only went so far, apparently.
A 'CV' is what the British call their resumes
HTH
yess from my back ground in BT I can imagine the unreconstructed nature of their senior management - "Hairy arsed engineers" who think that HR is for girls and pooftas.
I think they are going to lose as its custom and practice to use linked in for networking and putting your CV on linked in is part of that process nowadays. And as he was a recruiter he could argue that that tick box was for people to contact him who might want to work for BG.
Will have to look out for that one on xperthr at work.
yes but this is the UK HR don't get paid rock star SV developer wages - and HR is seen as a (pink getto / womens work)
I don't know that much about UK Employment Law, but I'm on the receiving end of US Employment Law.
This is an area where there is substantial difference. The UK's rules are very much not "at will"; a dismissal that doesn't follow exactly the stated procedures for the company (which are constrained by law and have to be set out in writing ahead of time) will open up the way to an unfair dismissal claim (which is typically processed by tribunal in the UK, rather than normal courts). Would the claim be successful in this case? I've no idea at all, but UK companies don't dismiss without being very careful about it (unless the company's in Administration, the approximate equivalent of Chapter 11).
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
This claim should be successful. Normally in the UK dismissal requires a verbal warning, written warning, then your notice with time to correct the situation between. Skipping any of these steps requires "gross misconduct". Knowingly skipping safety rules that could lead to someone getting injured is gross misconduct, floating your CV on the net isn't. The appropriate guidelines are here, and there's even a page about constructive dismissal (this wouldn't be the first case, it's probably the first involving linkedIn status). That is a government run site so should be reasonably accurate, although legally it can only be used as a guide.
The comment about being in administration probably refers to making someone redundant. However if challenged by the leaver the company needs to prove that the role is being closed, and that there was no alternative role they could have offered you. There are also statutory payouts (based on time spent with the company), which it doesn't sound like the case for this guy.
Except this is a *constructive* dismissal case - where you are forced to resign as your position has been made untenable, in otherwords the company has constructed it to effectively dismiss you
More difficult to prove, but if the details presented (that 21 other people, including the manager in charge of the disciplinary process, had also ticked the box, and there were no confidential details) are true, the guy shouldnt have a problem.
Under UK law, employees have rights.
He wasn't fired. If he was he'd be entitled to compensation.
He was disciplined for mentioning that he'd be interested in other jobs. He has the right to be interested in other jobs. As a result he felt he was forced to leave. The law on constructive dismissal prevents companies from forcing people to leave.
It strikes me as a very stupid way to handle the situation on the part of the company.
Firstly, an ambitious employee can most definitely be an asset to a company, if they are celver enough to keep him/her.
Secondly, if the employee was actually unhappy with the job, perhaps the company should see this as an opportunity to address the problem. If one employee is disgruntled, it is quite likely that there are others; dissatisfaction leads to low morale, which leads to poor results - this sort of thing is too important to ignore.
Thirdly, if an employee genuinely wants to leave, the company could do worse than to help him in a positive way; if an employee leaves with a good feeling, he will remember that in a new job and may even send business back to his previous employer.
Most posters here don't seem to understand how very different the UK is from the US with regards to employment law.
An employer cannot fire me if they find out I am looking for other roles. They cannot take any punitive action. The absolute worst they can do is stop promoting me or giving me increases.
At my level (senior tech / lower management) I actually inform my line manager when I start to look for a new role and when I go for interviews. This results in an adult, respectful and largely healthy transition. It avoids all the skullduggery I see from my US colleagues and is actually better for the team I leave behind as people can plan accordingly.
Most people I've worked with in Europe find the idea of the at-will state to be abusive and would never support something like that in their region.