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Several points on this privacy angle: 1. Many of the facts in your HR files are based on heresay - what your colleagues/managers/HR personnel think about you.

Several points on this privacy angle: 1. Many of the facts in your HR files are based on heresay - what your colleagues/managers/HR personnel think about you. These are highly subjective facts, very domain and company specific. Airing those out without context is a breach of privacy and can cause great damage to the employee down the line. 2. These files belong to the employer - he can alter them to show whatever he wants them to; either in real time, or after the fact, to justify wrongful termination etc. I've actually seen that happen, when a pregnant colleague of mine was let go, and the management later invented a non-existent reason (right before they settled out of court). 3. Privacy here goes one way: if you, the ex-employee, decide to protect your good name, or retaliate - maybe by discussing what you think really happened, you may be violating the NDA you signed. At worst, you could be sued for libel. Most of the time you have no facts on your side, and you can refer to #2 to see what happens to the facts aligned against you. Finally, imho, if your employee was caught in the process of criminal activity, report him to the appropriate authorities and fire him. Letting him go quietly, only to use this fact against him later, smells of shoddy behavior to your current and past employees, and to your customers.

FussyZeus 11y ago
1. I agree, kind of. The documents if released publicly should be made available in whole so context can be seen. 2. This pushes into the conspiracy area though, you'd have to have an entire chain of staff (at least in a company the size of Amazon) that couldn't not know this had occurred, and somehow convince them all to be silent. Not impossible, just unlikely. 3. If the company is releasing info about whatever occurred, an NDA would no longer apply. Why would it? The information is now public knowledge. This I definitely agree with, when employees are found to be stealing it should be handled like any other matter; call the cops and let the process handle itself. Again I think we'd have a much less corrupt corporate culture in our society if we started treating these criminals like criminals.
- TravelTechGuy 11y ago
  1. Not really possible: context potentially includes specific projects, specific privileged technology, customer information, not to mention private data of other people. Take for example the following: I use the reporting system to say that an employee is doing a horrible job on project X, using technology Y, therefore causing us to give customer Z a discount. Would you now reveal X, Y, Z, my name, my review, the entire project's status at the time of the review, and few other things that might cause the company many issues down the line? Or will you just say: "his colleagues reported he was lazy and disruptive, not a team player, not a good developer etc."? 2. Not far fetched at all, as I said, I saw it happen more than once. Usually we're discussing just the direct manager and one HR "specialist". I can put whatever I want in your file, whenever I want it. If it ever reaches a court, lawyers may discuss the what, why and when. But as someone else here mentions, people rarely sue their employers, so 99% of the time I can feel completely secure in retconning reality to fit my narrative. 3. Nope. Read through NDAs signed in big companies - they are very one-sided. Unless a court specifically negates an NDA, you may still be charged for violating it. Take again the case in point 1. Suppose said employee responds back to the leak about him being lazy by saying: "our project for customer Z was already behind schedule, due to us switching mid project from Java to Scala" - you just revealed privileged information: name of customer, status of project, technologies used. You may be sued for those. If customer Z decides to cancel their contract as a result of the leak, I'm sure the legal department of the former employer would be glad to talk to the employee about incurred damages. Finally, remember that this is an uneven fight to begin with: ex-employees are usually in a vulnerable position (sometimes even financially), seeking their next job, and with no readily-available legal resources. Employers have legal departments, lawyers on retainer, and significant funds and time to tie you in court. That's why 99.9% of people keep below the radar even when they feel slighted.

FussyZeus 11y ago

1. I agree, kind of. The documents if released publicly should be made available in whole so context can be seen. 2. This pushes into the conspiracy area though, you'd have to have an entire chain of staff (at least in a company the size of Amazon) that couldn't not know this had occurred, and somehow convince them all to be silent. Not impossible, just unlikely. 3. If the company is releasing info about whatever occurred, an NDA would no longer apply. Why would it? The information is now public knowledge. This I definitely agree with, when employees are found to be stealing it should be handled like any other matter; call the cops and let the process handle itself. Again I think we'd have a much less corrupt corporate culture in our society if we started treating these criminals like criminals.

TravelTechGuy 11y ago
1. Not really possible: context potentially includes specific projects, specific privileged technology, customer information, not to mention private data of other people. Take for example the following: I use the reporting system to say that an employee is doing a horrible job on project X, using technology Y, therefore causing us to give customer Z a discount. Would you now reveal X, Y, Z, my name, my review, the entire project's status at the time of the review, and few other things that might cause the company many issues down the line? Or will you just say: "his colleagues reported he was lazy and disruptive, not a team player, not a good developer etc."? 2. Not far fetched at all, as I said, I saw it happen more than once. Usually we're discussing just the direct manager and one HR "specialist". I can put whatever I want in your file, whenever I want it. If it ever reaches a court, lawyers may discuss the what, why and when. But as someone else here mentions, people rarely sue their employers, so 99% of the time I can feel completely secure in retconning reality to fit my narrative. 3. Nope. Read through NDAs signed in big companies - they are very one-sided. Unless a court specifically negates an NDA, you may still be charged for violating it. Take again the case in point 1. Suppose said employee responds back to the leak about him being lazy by saying: "our project for customer Z was already behind schedule, due to us switching mid project from Java to Scala" - you just revealed privileged information: name of customer, status of project, technologies used. You may be sued for those. If customer Z decides to cancel their contract as a result of the leak, I'm sure the legal department of the former employer would be glad to talk to the employee about incurred damages. Finally, remember that this is an uneven fight to begin with: ex-employees are usually in a vulnerable position (sometimes even financially), seeking their next job, and with no readily-available legal resources. Employers have legal departments, lawyers on retainer, and significant funds and time to tie you in court. That's why 99.9% of people keep below the radar even when they feel slighted.