6 ms·
That non-solicitation clause is interesting. My company forbids managers from providing references for employees. I wonder if that could also be considered an u
by giantg2 2y ago
That non-solicitation clause is interesting. My company forbids managers from providing references for employees. I wonder if that could also be considered an unfair labor practice since it negatively affect your ability to get a different job.
Honestly, I'm starting to see that my company is doing a lot of shady employment things. I guess most companies do.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- BenFranklin100 2y agoThe reason this is done is that litigious ex-employees might try and sue for defamation. Even if the lawsuit is scurrilous, it will cost a company $20-30K to defend itself, so many companies have decided it’s not worth the risk.
- giantg2 2y agoI can see why HR won't provide performance references. But I'm talking about if I'm a star employee and want to leave, I ask my boss if they'll write me a recommendation letter or if I can list them as a positive reference on my apps, they aren't allowed to by the company and may even get fired for it.
- BenFranklin100 2y agoThat’s what I am talking about too. Companies don’t allow any sort of references of former employees, positive or otherwise, and from any level of management. It’s too hard to police and much simpler to just not allow the practice. It’s frustrating from the employee and prospectus employer perspective, but I see why companies do this. Bad apples can be very time-consuming and expensive to deal with.
- giantg2 2y agoThere's no valid reason for it though. Hand me a letter of recommendation and if I don't like it, I simply won't share it with the next employer. If I'm the one who has the decision to share the recommendation, the responsibility should be on me.
- mattmaroon 2y agoHe is explaining to you the valid reason, and you are simply not understanding it. People sue, very often, even in spots where the responsibility should have been on them. Companies stopped doing these sorts of things because companies got sued. It is very easy to bring a lawsuit, And while it is, perhaps not very easy to win it, someone still can easily have six figures in defending themselves. If you don’t like that, OK, I don’t either, it is awful. But it is a rational response to a problem that happens.
- giantg2 2y ago"He is explaining to you the valid reason, and you are simply not understanding it." Oh I understand it. But do you see the big picture here? People should be sueing for them not writing the letter. The NLRB should be taking cases for this as well. This is almost as anticompetitive as non-competes. Edit: shouldn't have said for not writing the letter, just for a policy forbidding the writing of letters.
- nickff 2y agoWhat law would this policy violate? What’s the basis for the suit? That you think it might be anti-competitive because it reduces labor mobility?
- giantg2 2y agoBased on the article, it seems that this could be reasonable to pursue. You don't need to break a law for a lawsuit, just show damages resulting from another's actions. If you convince the NLRB or a jury that not providing references suppress your ability to get a job or increase your salary at the next job, that could be all that is needed. But this would be applicable to laws on anticompetitive behavior, but that's more of an NLRB thing.
- ghaff 2y agoI've provided references from former co-workers, clients, etc. Never from an actual manager. Also no idea if references have ever been checked or not--especially given I knew a lot of folks at the hiring company.
- nickff 2y agoSomeone might sue because (they think) a letter wasn’t effusive enough to get them a job they wanted, or because someone else got a letter and they didn’t.
- giantg2 2y agoAnd why can't I sue for this being an unfair labor practice? There should be more risk on this side of it than the other.
- mattmaroon 2y agoIt is not an unfair labor practice, nobody owes you a letter of recommendation. Corporations that have this policy always tell you that when you check on a prospective employee. “ Our policy is only to give dates of employment and X worked here from…” It is not a negative when you check on somebody and hear that. I’ve heard it many times. I can hardly take it as a sign of a bad employee when their company simply has a policy not to give references
- AdrianB1 2y ago> nobody owes you a letter of recommendation It some countries they do. A friend sued his former employer because the letter of recommendation he got was not good enough. Strange thing is they agreed and also contacted him to come back working for them. But it depends on the country, in some countries letters of recommendation are very rare, I wrote a couple in more than 20 years, basically every time someone that worked for or with me asked for one.
- ghaff 2y agoIn the US, my sense is that letters of recommendation are pretty rare (at least past school admissions where they're pretty worthless). Oh, there's a ton of informal networking but very little official you should hire this person (or especially) run away now. I'd never do the latter. Companies at least used to ask for references on resumes in the US but I'm not sure how common that is at this point and it was usually co-workers/clients/etc, and not sure how often it was even checked.
- SoftTalker 2y agoMost companies will only verify dates of employment, and possibly whether the employee is eligible for rehire (yes/no, without getting into reasons). Writing a letter of reference is more and more a risky thing and even in non-employment situations, more people are reluctant to do it.
- ska 2y agoThat’s what HR will do. Most companies don’t constrain an individual employee from providing a recommendation. People might not want to do it, but that’s a different issue.
- pjc50 2y agoSo .. have they stopped asking for them? Or it this a "We'll defect in prisoner's dilemma with no consequences to us" move?
- segmondy 2y agoCan you provide an example article or case law when this happened?
- lowbloodsugar 2y agoAgain, that sounds like a good reason, but it’s not the reason, and it would be easy to solve. The reason is wage suppression.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ungreased0675 2y agoI’m curious if your company asks for references when hiring people? I’d guess they do, which makes the policy unethical and hypocritical.
- BenFranklin100 2y ago—
- Ar-Curunir 2y agoYou’re a different person than the OP…
- SoftTalker 2y agoMostly no, because almost no employer will provide them.
- workingdog 2y agoThere's always a reference. It doesn't have to be the boss; it could be a co-worker. Generally written, it is hard to get, but almost always available with a phone call after hours. Asking the person, "Would you rehire this person?" or "Would you like to work with this person?" has a 95% answer rate and says everything. If the prospect can't connect you with a phone call to one of their co-workers, that tells us what we need to know.
- crazygringo 2y agoWhat country are you in and what type of job? In the US at the corporate level, this would be extremely unusual. Not to mention how is it even useful? It's the easiest thing in the world to fake by passing along the phone number of a friend claiming to be a co-worker and full of effusive praise for you. It's not like most companies list the phone numbers of their employees somewhere publicly that you could verify. Decades ago when I was a bartender, it was common practice for your "reference" to be a buddy who would pretend to be the manager at your last restaurant.
- ivan_gammel 2y agoIt should be unfair labor practice. Also, what does it achieve? It is not going to increase retention significantly, on the contrary, they will likely get lower eNPS. By the way in Germany employers are legally obliged to provide a reference (Arbeitszeugnis). Most of them that I have seen were too positive and sometimes obviously exaggerated.
- giantg2 2y agoYeah, I don't think it should be required, but I think policies banning managers from writing letters are also wrong.
- vessenes 2y agoThere’s a complex balance of power in the US (and Germany) around these. A common reason companies ban references is to protect the company (and occasionally employee <- manager) from lawsuits if the reference is negative. In Germany this has turned into a legal climate where only positive reviews are granted, creating a set of tiered shaded meanings inside positive reviews that stand in for ‘unacceptable’ to ‘brilliant’. At any rate, changing one part of the system, e.g. forcing referrals as in Germany would no doubt change other ways the system works in the US as well.
- beryilma 2y agoYes, but the same companies in the US have no problem asking for professional references when they are the ones hiring you.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]