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Question, when these people find a new job will the person hiring them know?
by JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
Question, when these people find a new job will the person hiring them know?
- VWWHFSfQ 5y agowhy would they know
- JohnJamesRambo 5y agoIf they call Blizzard checking references, does Blizzard say “we fired them for sexual harassment.”
- Overtonwindow 5y agoBlizzard won't say that, too much liability.
- ALittleLight 5y agoWhat does it mean that there is too much liability? What liability do you have for saying true things? "That person was fired because an investigation conducted by our company suggested they participated in sexual harassment."
- VWWHFSfQ 5y agowhy say anything when you can just say nothing. they don't care about it that much as long as the offender is gone now
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoBecause no corporate investigation has to meet the same standard as a court of law. You can fire someone if you think they did something wrong. But when you make statements, it's possible the employee will claim it is libel and you will suddenly need to prove their misconduct at a higher standard in a court of law. IANAL, but basically it's not worth it. The company already has what they want: Not working with that employee. Anything past that is unnecessary risk.
- twblalock 5y agoImagine that a previous employer said something bad about you during a reference check, and what they said wasn't true, and it caused you to lose a potential new job. You'd definitely have a good reason to sue them. Now, imagine the same scenario, except what your previous employer said was true. But you sued them anyway. In both cases, you have the ability to sue. In both cases, unless there is some very strong and obvious evidence against you, a judge and/or jury might take your side. From the perspective of one of your former employers, it's just not worth the risk to give details about why someone was separated from a company.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoThe liability to Blizzard or the firing company is that the fired employee sues Blizzard, “I did not get these jobs because they tarnished my name to potential employers.”
- itsdrewmiller 5y agoPeople exaggerate the amount of risk for this kind of thing, but the benefit to the company giving the bad reference is also essentially zero.
- thakoppno 5y agoI agree with both your points. To be honest if the same signal is sent by merely confirming employment dates but not literally disparaging the former employee, I fail to see how there’s any additional legal protection. The implication is tortious interferus in both cases.
- eru 5y agoThat's why many companies don't give any details at all, whether positive or negative. This way your line of argument doesn't apply; not from a logical point of view and also not from a legal point of view: no signal is sent at all.
- thakoppno 5y agoI agree with you too. For the sake of my argument, I was conjuring the scenario where companies give either positive recommendations or bare minimum ones.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- eru 5y agoThat opens Blizzard up to litigation by the fired employee. At least more than not saying anything. Even if you think something is true, someone else might contest that, and ask a court to decide. Court battles are costly and time consuming.
- lelanthran 5y ago> What does it mean that there is too much liability? What liability do you have for saying true things? Problem is, in many countries, it's not a fact until a court has made a judgement. Bearing in mind that the accused employees are technically and legally innocent, you are introducing a few problems. First, the disadvantages of calling these people criminals: 1. They can (and probably will win) sue you for calling them a criminal. 2. The resulting news that a court found against you is a bigger problem. You called someone a criminal, they sued you for it and won. Now you have to deal with the fact that as far as the public goes, you just fired and shamed innocent people. 3. Finally, after the news gets out, all the employees who were laid off in the same round and with same accusations now have legal precedent to challenge your accusations of criminality. And due to precedent, they will almost surely win. Now, the disadvantages of giving only their start/end dates and job title when called: [uhh, I can't think of anything ...] It all boils down to "there is some risk in badmouthing them" vs "there is literally no risk, 0% risk at all, is saying nothing about their behaviour".
- intunderflow 5y agoNot sure if its the same in the USA, but in Europe there are massive legal liability issues to giving a negative reference - most places give no reference or a standard set of terms because of this
- CheezeIt 5y agoThe U.S. Bill of Rights [1] protects giving negative references. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
- VWWHFSfQ 5y agowhich one protects giving negative references
- etchalon 5y agoPersonal references are protected, to the extent that liable and slander laws would apply. Any HR person / lawyer will tell you providing a negative review of an employee, let alone with amount of detail, opens you up to liabilities that aren't worth it. As an employer, I've been told that, if called, I should only provide the date a person started with the company, the date a person left, their starting and ending salaries (murky now given salary history laws) and whether they'd be eligible to be re-hired. I ask any employee we fire for cause not to list us as a reference.
- CheezeIt 5y agoWill they give you a magnitude attached to those liabilities? Anybody can falsely sue for defamation, so you need an average cost value beyond the mere possibility of lawsuit to get a true representation of the problem.
- xsmasher 5y agoThe cost may be minimal, but the value of giving a bad reference is zero.
- gnicholas 5y agoIn general, employers just confirm the dates of employment. Saying more than that potentially opens them up to legal liability.
- VWWHFSfQ 5y agodefinitely not. If they're smart they will only provide confirmation about whether or not the person worked there, what their title was, and maybe if they would hire them again. but that's it
- eloisius 5y agoThe will not. They will confirm start and end dates, ask if the termination was voluntary, and may ask if they would hire them again in the future.
- eru 5y agoAnd even some 'voluntary' termination might be a case of somebody being managed out or asked to leave.
- dafelst 5y agoThe games industry is not that big, it is not difficult to get backchannel references on almost anyone who has been in the industry for more than a few years.
- ziml77 5y agoI'm sure they could figure it out based on when their employment with Activision-Blizzard ended. Do they want to risk being wrong with the guess and passing up a good employee because of it? Possibly not.
- BoorishBears 5y agoI feel like that's an uncharitable take. Even if you take a very nihilistic view of company morality... for simple liability reasons, most places don't want someone fired for sexual harassment. But it's trivial for those fired to not get caught. For example, it's likely some (not a majority, but some) people are leaving Activision Blizzard over what's been uncovered, they could claim to be part of that group. Or they could just lie and say the left earlier.
- Beldin 5y agoAs pointed out above, other employees may have left because of the misconduct aimed at them in the same time period. It'd be more than a little ironic to tar all of those with the "suspected offender" brush.
- BoorishBears 5y agoThat's exactly what my comment says
- ziml77 5y agoNihilistic? I was pointing out that there is some info one could use to inform their guess about whether someone is one of the harassers or not. And I'm saying I don't think it's a strong enough signal for most companies to use that information to filter applicants. If they did, they could be passing up people who happened to leave around the same time. How crappy would that be if people who left because they hated the awful state of things at ActiBlizz were getting caught up in that filter?
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> Do they want to risk being wrong with the guess and passing up a good employee because of it? Would it be illegal to ask if they were fired in connection with this push? If the candidate answers no, they’re clean or a liar. If they demur or confirm, you have your answer.
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoThey won’t automatically know, but: 1) Anyone in the industry presumably knows about this news. If someone’s end date at Activision Blizzard is January 2022, they’re going to have a strong suspicion. 2) Backchannel reference checks (very warranted in this case) will likely confirm it. Activision Blizzard wouldn’t confirm anything other than start and end dates and any candidate-provided references are going to say good things, so it’s important to network and ask somebody who worked there at the time.
- doktorhladnjak 5y agoA lot of companies will also say if the former employee is eligible to be employed there again. A negative on that plus a January separation date won't look good for those folks.
- tablespoon 5y ago> A lot of companies will also say if the former employee is eligible to be employed there again. A negative on that plus a January separation date won't look good for those folks. I suppose that may mean something if you're playing detective with a former Blizzard employee's resume, but I'd be cautious in reading too much into "if the former employee is eligible to be employed there again" generally. I know of a company where HR policy is that all involuntary separations are ineligible for rehire, including things like downsizing layoffs.
- awb 5y agoWhy would you be ineligible for rehire after a downsizing?
- barkingcat 5y agoYou'd be surprised at the kinds of hr policies that makes their own sense, but has no common sense. Most likely to avoid someone returning on false pretenses to retaliate against being downsized in the firstplace.
- john_moscow 5y ago
- refulgentis 5y ago
- pkaye 5y agoThey are probably working under "at will" employment agreement so can be terminated without establishing a cause.
- aspaviento 5y agoWhat's the need of stigmatizing these people? If they did wrong, they have been fired for it. They don't need to be permanently punished for a mistake. That won't help anyone.
- simonh 5y agoThis is a tricky issue. I agree in principle because I like to think that people can change and learn. On the other hand if you hire someone with a known track record, if they then harass members of your staff, you've got some serious questions to answer about potentially knowingly putting them at risk.
- meatsauce 5y ago[flagged]
- Planktonne 5y agoBeing fired for harassment/abuse doesn't magically mean that you'll never harass or abuse someone in the future. Hiring someone with a track record of these issues puts your other employees at risk.
- aflag 5y agoAre you saying they can't ever be hired again then?
- Planktonne 5y agoNot at all (and I'm not really sure why you're leaping so precipitately to that). But someone's previous conduct in a professional role is absolutely relevant information when considering hiring them; that's why we have the concept of a reference at all. It's not stigmatising someone or being unfair to them to consider their prior actions. If someone has previously been fired for harassment, then that doesn't mean that they should never be employed again. Rehabilitation is totally possible, but it's not an automatic thing: someone with that history should expect it to be a concern for future employers, and should be able to outline (as you would with any other issue) the steps they've taken to mitigate it and ensure the same behaviour won't be repeated.
- dijonman2 5y agoDo they deserve a black mark following them around?
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoIt depends on whether they realize the error of their ways and have improved. If not, they shouldn't be around women. I mean, I don't want to stigmatize people and I want to believe that people can change if confronted with the error of their ways, but I've seen too many instances where it just didn't work like that. If they are still behaving inappropriately in the workplace, they should not be in the workplace.
- meatsauce 5y agoAnd you are the judge?
- hacker_newz 5y agoNo, the employer that fired them was the judge.
- bertil 5y agoI’ve worked in the gaming industry and I was surprised how some fairly standard questions about creativity, playing games, character development, etc. lead to detailed insights into the candidate’s personality. We’ve had candidates answer “You have to organise a fun evening for the 80 employees of this office. Your budget is $10. What do you do?” (a question meant to leverage their understanding that 70 of those 80 are insanely creative people who barely need a pen and paper to have fun) by suggesting going to a strip-club. “What’s your favourite game?” is a staple (no answer is disqualifying in most cases); “Which character do you play?” the obvious follow-up when it’s an option. Candidates have suggested with blunt words that their pick characters in certain video games because they are female, well-endowed and barely dressed. The word “jiggle” was used, with a nervous laughter that I had to describe in my feedback as ‘cringey’. If one of those people understand that they did wrong, I’m hoping they’ll give considerate answers to what are standard, common questions. I’ve never heard a full contrition during an interview (not on that matter) but that could be an interesting conversation. If they think that they did nothing wrong sexualising their colleagues, I would expect hiring manager to notice a nervous laughter, connect that to the previous employer and date of departure, and possibly prod discretely; “What do you think is missing in the game industry nowadays?” is a good follow-up. If they walked passed a female employee, I might ask her if she noticed any sideway look.
- ben174 5y agoIf you expect an honest answer from your candidate, and you don't expect a well-qualified candidate to choose a well-endowed female to be their character of choice, then you're living in a fantasy world. I understand that it's insane to talk about that during an interview, but I think it's fairly common for non-creepy people to choose a character they find pleasurable to look at.
- dpark 5y ago> I understand that it's insane to talk about that during an interview That’s the key part, though. Part of being a professional is knowing how and when to appropriately compartmentalize. Keep the video game heroine fetishes at home. If someone can’t keep that stuff to themselves for an interview, there’s no way they’ll be able to keep it to themselves on the job. Hire someone inept enough to discuss this on an interview and you’ve hired your next sexual harassment case.