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"That's All I Can Tell You…"
Part I of II
Checking the references of a potential new employee is basic to the hiring process. Who would want to hire a thief…or an embezzler?
It can also be a frustrating experience, since most employers today know that there are real risks in passing along negative information about their former employees. Armed with the legal right to ask a prospective employer to reveal the references on which he may have based his hiring decision, job candidates are suing when they have been rejected on the basis of a poor reference.
While employers cannot be successfully sued for telling the truth about a former employee, it is often difficult to be sure what "truths" can safely be divulged.
You may have fired a teller whom you knew for a certainty was stealing but, unless you have signed confession, a verbal admission in front of a witness or a prosecution resulting in a conviction, passing along that information could land you in court! On the losing end! You may be very sure about your facts. But, lacking one of the above "proofs", you have to recognize that your conclusions about the individual involved are simply unproven allegations in the eyes of the law. This information cannot be passed along to a prospective new employer.
There is no doubt that this legal armament has helped protect many job changers from unfair "blackballing" by some employers who had "scores to settle" with their former employees. While this may never have been a common practice, there is no doubt that there was a needed protection for those employees who suffered from employers who knowingly or unknowingly caused suffering to innocent former employees.
This relatively new legal climate has had a "chilling effect" on the candid exchange of reference information. Because of it, many employers have opted to protect themselves by limiting information to dates worked and positions held. Unfortunately, that creates enough of a hole in the reference process that many thieves and embezzlers have been able to continue their careers in financial institutions without missing a beat.
References are as vitally important as they ever were but the risks in providing them are higher. What to do about the dilemma presented will be the subject of this column in the next issue of BANKERS' HOTLINE.
Copyright © 1991 Bankers' Hotline. Originally appeared in Bankers' Hotline, Vol. 2, No. 3, 4/91
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