When dealing with mass misconduct, how do you prevent disruption while still punishing the act?

Question

I am an HR Strategist in a company of about 500 people. The Head of HR position is currently not filled and no interim head has been appointed. Seems like leadership has decided that it will be me for at least this problem but I haven't a clue how this is usually handled.

We are a consulting company that has a lot of people who require obtaining a certain certification for government contracts and other regulated areas. About 200 people need this certification and sometimes even an associated certification and they need to recertify every year.

We recently learned that about 100 of them cheated on the certification exam through various means made easier by the fact that the exam was virtual this year. We learned that they cheated by who was using a particular video chat during the time of the exam (which could be done on company computers). A couple team members organized to divide and conquer the exam and they gave the answers to everyone else.

Now, we can't let this stand because if anybody learns, our reputation could be damaged and key people to whom contracts are attached may lose their certifications and thus we would lose the contracts.

But we also extremely hesitant to turf 100 people over this as that makes it more likely that someone will learn and the secret will be leaked. Even if they all kept this secret, this would be massively disruptive to projects at our company and could cause substantial losses.

What creative ideas exist out there for dealing with this? We need to keep it quiet but prevent it from happening again.

Answer 1

Seek legal advice.

I'm quite stunned this answer has not been given already, but it seems that people are trying to suggest what to do or not do. I don't think anyone here can. We're not lawyers, and it looks very much to me like you need one.

First, you have a substantial proportion of your employees who appear to have committed gross misconduct (falsifying, or falsely obtaining, a qualification is certainly gross misconduct at every company I've ever worked for). To deal with that, you need to follow due process, which needs legal advice (and seems likely to me to result in multiple dismissals, though that's just my supposition). Conversely, if you do not follow the process, you may be setting a precedent in how misconduct is handled that could be used against you in future. That needs legal advice too.

Second, you are getting government contracts in a regulated industry under false pretences. Governments and regulators are not well known for laughing and brushing it aside when they discover a company they employ is knowingly in breach of regulations. What are the consequences when they find out? I don't know. A lawyer might.

Third, you are concerned about "the secret getting out". Secrets are no longer secrets as soon as two people know. Here, 100 people know. At some point, one or more of those people will leave the company, then they have no reason to keep the secret any more. One of the people who didn't cheat might find out - they also have no reason to keep that to themselves, and a big motivation to blow the whistle. The secret WILL get out. Will you personally be culpable if you try to keep it secret? Perhaps. You need legal advice.

I strongly recommend that you stop asking a bunch of unqualified strangers on the internet, in fact, I suggest you delete this question. Then engage the services of a good lawyer.

Answer 2

The following assumes your business can't survive firing all the cheaters.

One possible issue with a sacrificial-lamb / keep-it-quiet arrangement is that if there really are 100 cheaters, anyone who didn't cheat is in a position to be rightfully annoyed and cause trouble.

Might seem crazy, but perhaps take the public position that you suspect some unknown number of people cheated. Give no indication of the number. Emphasize you don't know exactly who. Re-test everyone regardless of whether you suspect them, "just to be safe". Explain they will be monitored.

That way you "did something" and aren't covering anything up in a way that can backfire, and have a response to customer concerns. "Few bad apples / took action to ensure integrity of certification".

!! No matter what, this situation requires bringing in your company's legal resources. I am neither a lawyer nor an HR professional !!

Answer 3

What creative ideas exist out there for dealing with this? We need to keep it quiet but prevent it from happening again.

No, that makes you complicit with the cheating. You only have two options.

Pretend it never happened and deal with anything that eventuates if and when it does. This would depend on the actual certs and the level of proof you have.

Investigate the matter professionally and decide on a punishment that complies with any legalities. If people lose their certifications that just how it goes, they can always resit the exam. You may find that it's not as big a problem as you thought. It's unlikely for 100 employees to act together in this way.

I don't know what industry, but if it's financial compliance or safety related then you have no choice but to look into it and move forwards from what proven findings you get. The consequences to the company can far overshadow needing to recertify some employees.

Answer 4

Be compliant. Behave as if everything was to become public. Because the probability it will become public is very high.

Most companies have processes for such situations in place. They specify how the cases are documented and investigated. What you should do precisely depends on these established processes and the certification concerned.

If that's some type of a government certification, that's a huge deal. Contact the issuer and discuss the way to act.

If that's something "less critical" like some technology certification (it doesn't sound like it but who knows - some tech certifications are also just valid for a year or two), collect evidence and punish everybody who cheated. The organizers of the cheating should probably be fired. What happened boils down to cheating and you don't want to have cheaters in your team. They damage the reputation of your whole company. You don't want other employees to think such a behavior is accepted either. Of course the prerequisite here is, as mentioned, a thorough investigation according to your processes.

Answer 5

Recertify and audit immediately. Then once safe, hold individual meetings and address as a disciplinary issue.

Your immediate pressing problem is that right now you have important team members and projects being handled uncertified , and they have been for a while. Depending on the industry that could be anything from humiliation to death of the business to criminal action. So we need to safeguard the business first.

Citing "irregularities", generic "issues", handwaving due to covid, or any other reason, retest and recertify everyone - involved or not.

Also audit work done since the cheating, for any disclosure or quality issue. That could be expensive but its essential for liability coverage, since the mere fact of non certification may mean liability if you can't show the work is okay.

Those two steps, means that you are now valid to work, and that if any issue comes out you now have damage control. At worst "yes there were lapses in certification, but the employees concerned were immediately recertified and their interim few months work rechecked." That should safeguard the business and its reputation, against the worst outcomes.

Once that is done, call the people involved in one by one, with the ringleaders first. Tell them exactly what you know, so its on their employment records as gross breach of contract. Tell them that the matter has now been fixed, the company lost X amount over it, or Y per person involved. Offer them an ultimatum/deal:

• The company clearly is horrified and disappointed, and has been defrauded. They may not realise it was a criminal act as well as a firing offence. Point out it was,and that it threatens their career, what were they thinking!. (Which is what that is: the staff faked qualification status via cheated exams, to keep employment, which they didn't have. That's fraud.)
• Clearly people are now qualified again. So we can carry on, and we hope life will continue. We need our team, most of our team want to stay not go.
• But the matter cannot be left unaddressed. Coverups usually come out (by rumour if no other way). They put everyone's jobs at risk. There will be a gross misconduct record on employee files. The company is not presently intending criminal action but may need to if it recurs. And of course those involved will forgo financially, to make clear the seriousness of the matter(bonuses, foregone pay, whatever). Alternatively they may accept leaving without pay or notice.
• ideally fire some ringleaders if you can afford to. Or "glass ceiling" them if not. They'll get the hint at next years annual review, but by then, too late.
• state explicitly that this will close the books provided nothing else happens.

The aim of this is to keep the bulk of your team, but establish/impress the seriousness, and that your company is not a soft touch over it. Grumbling and resentment but most will understand it's fair, and be grateful it wasn't worse.

By doing it this way round, you remove the threat of up-front resignation/blackmail/"over a barrel". Your team are now recertified so they are invested in continuing paid work. The minority you lose won't fatally harm operations. They can be replaced.

If you aren't a jerk, after a while you'll be humming along again.

Update/comment

To be clear, this is ruthless but pragmatic. The question explicitly asks how to "punish the act" without harming the business. I take "punish" to mean "make a strong impression" and address the misconduct, not "be a vindictive jerk".

As described, the choice facing your team members at the 1 on 1 disciplinary meetings will be, they have their jobs and certifications back. They are told there will be penalties (lost income, gross misconduct on file). If they stay, they lose money (but know its "really" fair), but guaranteed to keep their job and income, are certified, and subject is closed. If they decline and leave, they have no job, and have to also worry what their next employer will be told - can they even get another job? Will they lose their ability to work in the industry?

Its for that reason I believe that despite grumbles they'll stay. They've already invested their time in recertification,and are still working. Their cheating is known and yet unexpectedly they have a path to recover from it, which is generous and unusual. The grumbles will be diluted over time because they'll mostly know its fair and also want it to stay closed. And that's the importance of genuinely welcoming them back and not being a jerk, to further dilute any remaining resentment.

Answer 6

First of all, do not assume that number is necessarily correct. That number could have been higher because some could have been smart enough to use their personal phone instead of their work computer. Or that number could have been lower because it's possible that some idiots just spammed their colleagues with the answers to the exam on chat without having been explicitly asked to do so. So stop mentioning a specific number of cheaters. Only speak of your suspicions that some of your employees cheated.

Next, speak to upper management and your general counsel. CYA, Cover your a__. Get their buy-in. If something goes wrong, you'll need their support. Now, it may be that as an HR Strategist, that you can't take unilateral action anyway (as pointed out by Barmar), but I'm leaving that tidbit in there in case someone else with the same problem, but a different title, comes to this question.

Next, assuming that you have management's support and that you've worked out the logistics of a re-test with the Certifying Authority, announce to everyone they're going to be re-tested again, but that the test will be proctored this next time around. Telling them that they are going to be proctored is important because it warns the ones that cheated the last time to actually study this time.

And as Brian C pointed out, in case you fear that some employees are not taking this exam seriously enough, you may want to warn everyone that anyone caught cheating will be fired.

If the average score/passing rate was abnormally high, you can use that as a justification to re-test everyone again. Also, not telling them how you discovered the cheating is important also. If you tell them how you discovered the cheating, they'll come up with a different way to cheat this next time. So you're perfectly justified in keeping this information secret (but keep in mind that I'm not a lawyer and I don't even know what this certification is about, so you'll need to loop in your own general counsel).

On the day of the test, turn off access to the chat within 30 seconds of the test beginning. And get proctors to monitor the new test, preferably people that are not familiar with your employees and people that can not easily be intimidated/bamboozled by them.

Also, decide what those proctors should do if a few people decide to get up in the middle of the test around the same time to go to the bathroom. They're adults. It's not like you can tell them not to go. But prepared for such an eventuality.

As to the organizers of the cheating, if you know who they are and if they're "at-will" employees, you can fire them if you want, but you do not necessarily need to tell them why you're letting them go. In fact, it would be better if you didn't say anything because even just the rumor of it could tarnish their professional reputation. In the unlikely event that some of them are absolutely essential to your company, you may want to keep them, or you may want to wait before you fire them. You don't want to box yourself into a corner either.

Answer 7

If you fail to discipline them for fear of what it will do to your reputation or because it will disrupt your business, you are basically letting them blackmail you. And giving in to blackmail just invites more. Trying to paper over this and have "no disruption" simply isn't feasible in this situation.

There is the issue of how much evidence you have, and how active of a participant the people who just received answers were, but if you have clear evidence that someone actively participated, you should fire them for gross misconduct. You should hold off on making any payments, such as severance, final paycheck, reimbursement for unused PTO, etc., until you you discuss the matter with a lawyer. You should contact the unemployment office and tell them that these people were fired for gross misconduct and should not receive UI.

Answer 8

I worked a long time ago for a large company where a few workers got caught breaking some government contract rules. Us rank and file workers never did find out exactly who got caught or what they did, but from that point forward, everyone had new training and tests on that area every year.

Younger workers might not remember a time before the yearly exams, but the thing to realize is the exams are there because someone at some point got caught breaking the rules the exams were intended to cover, and companies wanted to be able to show that they did everything in their power to avoid the problem, and it is therefore not a company-wide policy or culture problem, but the result of a few bad employees.

Whatever you decide to do, you should do it with the thought in mind that the truth will eventually come out. All it takes is one former employee who is angry about something unrelated. When the truth does come out, you want to be able to show that your company is still worthy of trust, even though some employees aren't. If you think firing 100 employees is disruptive, imagine never being able to bid on their contracts again.

Answer 9

A minor frame challenge: Do you really, really have "proof beyond a reasonable doubt"? Sworn confessions, the actual video of the video chat, etc.? Because that's not that common. What is very common is malicious gossip and workplace drama. That's a real threat to morale and unity, and it's your job to control that too.

It's easy (fun!) to get swept away in the drama of an accusation like this, but you have to see it from a balanced perspective. Here's a litmus test: suppose you outed them and they sued you for defamation. Are you sure you'll win?

Just retest everybody

Take the following stance:

Because of the degraded quality and security of testing done under COVID restrictions, we consider them to be only an interim certification, valid only until proper testing becomes possible.

And make everyone get re-tested in the normal format, as soon as that's possible.

You could (and probably should) report the suspicions of cheating to the testing agency, since they are ultimately responsible for the test. This should be only stated as a vague suspicion, and the company must say no more than facts positively known.

First, it is the least bad option that you can take, that doesn't involve mass firings and scandal.

It portrays that your company has a higher standard than the government, who would simply re-test them at regular interval.

And once they pass legit, it changes the optics from "cheap company sent unqualified people" ... to "qualified people rebelled against excessive and unnecessary testing".

Of course, this works best for the company if all the employees stay on and do that new round of bona-fide testing. So your best play as a company is to retain everyone, don't make them want to quit, and get them to re-test and pass.

The optics for the employees will be "Okay. So the company found out about the cheating, and their response is to re-test everyone... hopefully they're doing this instead of a formal cheating investigation, so I might just be off the hook if I pass." And you can sort of spread that hinting around: "we'll only investigate people for cheating if they fail".

For the non-cheaters, the optics are "I have to re-test because others cheated". This will put just the right amount of social pressure against the cheaters.

Once everybody has passed and their qualifications are proven, then you can think about disciplinary action in cases where you are sure.

Answer 10

Appoint a proctor for the next testing round

Your goal is to prevent future cheating. Evidently the status quo is fine except for the threat of that future cheating. You tried the honour system and that failed, so now use what universities do. Appoint a time to do the exam for everyone (or perhaps multiple times if they are spread out or if the exam is not set by someone else), designate a location, and have HR staff/contract proctors patrol to ensure that no cheating occurs.

Answer 11

I would do whatever is laid out in the procedures by the certification authority. Certification authorities usually have provisions for what happens if people cheat on their exams. The most important part is that these people who cheated can't leave your company and take their ill-gotten certification to another company and use it, because that would be betraying the public good. Additionally, this would take the disciplinary measures out of your hands: you don't have to fire anyone or send a public notice to anyone; just send a note to the certification authority that you believe these people cheated, and let them handle the rest. Certification authorities like their certifications to be valuable, so if getting a certification is as easy as cheating on a test, then the certification loses a lot of value.

Likely what will happen is, the CA will revoke the certification for these people and they'll have to retest. Some of the people may not want to retest, or be angry, or think they were "ratted out" (they were), or whatever, and they may quit your company. That's fine, you don't want those people anyway. For the rest, they'll get the certification properly (or be reported a second time; if they cheat a second time then you may want to take some other action as well).

Now, the problem being, what if the certification authority does not sanction the cheaters at all, what to do then? Well, the thing is, the certification is a statement by the CA that the person with the certification possesses some skills. It is not a qualifier that a person possesses those skills; there are plenty of people who are not certified in something who do have the skills, and there are, as to your example, plenty of people who are certified who do (may) not have those skills as well. Rather than that, the certification is saying, "We, as a panel of experts on the subject of determining whether a person has these skills, declare collectively that we believe that this person has these skills". And then, if you trust the experts to determine whether a person has skills or not, then you accept the certification or not.

Now, if a person cheats on the test, and the CA either is aware or doesn't care about that cheating, and the CA is prepared, despite the cheating, to give the person a certification, that is the experts saying "We believe that cheating on our test is good enough for us to be convinced that this person has the skill required". Which means that cheating on the test is sufficient to pass the test and earn the certification; cheating on the test is, in essence, a valid criterion for passing the test. In which case, nothing is actually wrong here; the people who cheated got their certification in a valid way (or at the very least, not an invalid way, because if it was invalid then there would be a sanctioning process for cheaters). In which case, there is nothing you have to do, just treat them as though they had passed the certification legitimately and go along your way.

Note that the perils of doing testing remotely is not a new phenomenon. This is why universities don't allow testing remotely, why a proctor has to be in the room with an examinee at all times, and so on. The perils of cheating on exams is very well known from the time that examination was invented, and surely when this CA made their decision to allow online certification for this exam, they were aware of the mire that they were delving into, and they were ok with that. The rest is not your business; your business begins and ends at the point at which your employees are required to certify, and at the point at which you notify the CA that they have given certifications which, in your opinion, may (or should) violate the CA's principles. The rest is up to the CA.

Caveat to all of the above: If this improper certification can cost lives (e.g. architecture, civil engineering, medicine), then you have a responsibility to go further than the above, for public safety reasons. You can't just handwave somebody who doesn't know how to build a bridge properly and then it collapses and kills people. That's not OK. In this case, you need to go further.

Answer 12

Deprive the people sharing answers of bonuses.

1. They will not ignore the hint.
2. This will happen some time after the events, so the risk of them talking too much will have less impact.
3. Others will be happy that they are (for now) not punished and will keep quiet about the matter.

Answer 13

Administer an exam that is hand written and give them pop quizes each is uniqe so they can’t cheat. Offer some incentives some that they can put on their resume. Rent some of those picnic tables on wheels and a keg.

Answer 14

Fire the ringleaders and threaten them with legal action if they say anything. They acted in bad faith and cost your firm money, they are over a barrel.

For the rest, make them sign an NDA as a condition of their continued employment and make them retake their certification.

Whatever you do, involve a lot of legal help immediately.