Timeline for Supplying a reference to a bad former employee
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
9 events
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| Dec 5 at 17:57 | comment | added | Trunk | @Donald But OP didn't go into specifics on where the ex-employee fell down workwise - due to fear of identifying the organization, he says. I just thought there normally would be some saving graces in anyone performance - even where the performance in entirety would be clearly inadequate. (Though naturally we must be mindful of smothering someone's reference with faint praise.) Mind you, OP has mentioned other attitudinal issues too that were communicated to him by others in the ex-employee's work group. Yet I feel that the selection processes in OP's organization need a fresh rebuild. | |
| Dec 5 at 17:50 | comment | added | Donald | @Trunk - The individual's performance was poor enough to be fired for their performance. It must have been poor enough for the author to list why the employee was fired. | |
| Dec 5 at 16:10 | comment | added | Trunk | So, all in all, I would refer the reference to the HR department in this case. | |
| Dec 5 at 15:48 | comment | added | Trunk | It all sounds like you only had a (perhaps weak?) say in their remaining rather than a significant say in this decision. I feel that your organization has senior management and HR management that prefers to decide matters but not accept responsibility for such decisions. I would worry about your future progress in that company to be frank as much as the immediate awkward matter of a reference for an under-performing ex-employee. | |
| Dec 5 at 13:54 | comment | added | William Smith | To address why we kept them as long as we did, there was already some discussion amongst management concerning whether we would need to extend their probation, but in the end we decided that due to projects being in flux at that time it was not really fair to assume their bad performance was solely an issue with them. I had an informal warning session with them and we monitored progress more closely. At first it seemed like they might be improving a little but sadly it didn't bear out and more issues kept arising, to the point where their continued employment was no longer tenable. | |
| Dec 5 at 12:56 | history | edited | Trunk | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Phrasing
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| Dec 5 at 12:24 | comment | added | Trunk | We haven't yet heard from OP as to the extent of the employee's performance inadequacy. It would be very unlikely that an employee with across-the-board inadequacy would be kept in position past the initial training phase. Not unless the company made a great (and incorrect) assumption regarding the employee's foundation skills - and it was only after initial training that this assumption was shown to be wrong and the employee even then didn't show the capability to acquire such skills to the degree required. I'll leave a question on this to OP. | |
| Dec 5 at 11:55 | comment | added | Donald | Except in this question, the employee's performance was a problem, so saying it was satisfactory would be a lie. The only way to answer this question, without saying the reason the employee was fired, is to indicate that the policy is not to confirm that the employee worked for the company as stated on their resume. I, however, believe that I would instead state whether their performance was satisfactory or not. I am covered by the fact anything I state would have been in their performance reviews. | |
| Dec 4 at 18:29 | history | answered | Trunk | CC BY-SA 4.0 |