Discussion on question by T. Sar: Employee's Relative and Theft from the Workplace

12:33 AM

10

Q: Employee's Relative and Theft from the Workplace

We recently had some public strikes and protests in Brazil which caused some major inconveniences all around. One of those inconveniences was the lack of public transport for today, so my direct boss (our CEO) opted to give everyone the day off. During one of those protests, someone threw a roc...

Kilisi

Frank should be firing himself, or standing up for himself, it's not something you should be reprimanding staff over. His brother wouldn't have been near the premises if it wasn't for him... not that that makes a difference. Your concern is that it's not happening on the company infrastructure. It will all blow over eventually.

Mindwin

I've tagged the question for the country at hand.

DarkPurpleShadow

@Kilisi: I wonder how Frank is supposed to stand for himself alone against a group of bullies.

Kilisi

@DarkPurpleShadow Just tell them straight out that he had nothing to do with it and he's as disappointed as anyone then ignore anything negative.

@Paparazzi feeling is mutual bro :-)

Lilienthal

"written warnings" Sigh. I don't suppose you've considered trying to actually manage your staff instead?

@Kilisi What? You have an office descending into actual flame wars and you don't consider this a problem? Surely you've been on this site and in the workplace long enough to realise the importance of morale in running a business? And why are you assuming that the brother "wouldn't have been near the premises if it wasn't for him" or that this somehow assigns any blame to this person?

Kilisi

12:33 AM

@Lilienthal why are you assuming otherwise?

Lilienthal

@Kilisi Because I have zero reason to assume a link that the OP doesn't mention? And frankly even if it were true, I find even the mere suggestion that this somehow reflects on the employee or makes him complicit to be morally reprehensible. This "sins of the father" nonsense is the same kind of vacuous reasoning that blames the victim for the crime. I assume you'd be the type of employer who would fire someone who's abusive ex-husband stalked her to the office because it disrupted the workday?

Paparazzi

@Lilienthal That is how K thinks. He is not going to change. His in your face answers get up votes. Everyone had the day off, strikes, and protests and yet the only reason the brother was there was because of the employee? If there were protests it was most likely in the heart of the city.

T. Sar

@Lilienthal "I don't suppose you've considered trying to actually manage your staff instead?" - I'm sorry, I may have left something out. We asked already for the relevant members of the staff to stop this, but for no success up to this moment. That's why we are considering the written warnings. We are trying to manage our staff, but sometimes an outside look (like from you guys at The Workplace) can show a different, better path. Please don't assume we aren't trying =/

Fattie

thanks for this fantastic question, @T.Sar ! I realize this is a serious and weighty issue, but I had to laugh (for example "but the conversation just moved to Whatsapp group" !!! :) ) I love Brazil !

T. Sar

@Fattie Honestly, this country is far from serious -.-. Even the House of Cards TV series is mocking fun on twitter about how stupid our politics and our people can be sometimes.

Lilienthal

12:33 AM

@T.Sar It's more a dig at how written warnings aren't worth the paper they're written (or printed) on. And if you never used them before they're definitely not going to be the magic solution here. You need to start having your managers addressing individual people to make it clear that their behaviour is out of line, that it's not how your company wants to operate and that you consider being collegial a baseline requirement of their job. You treat this as any other performance issue. Introducing written warnings just for this could even be legally problematic if Mindwin's answer is correct.

T. Sar

@Lilienthal Oh, it seems like a cultural barrier! Written Warnings have legal weight on Brazil. If a given employee has a couple of them already, they can be fired by just cause and lose any rights they would have to severance money. It's like a "strike" in a baseball game. At least for my country, they are somewhat of a big thing and they are the type of legal material that often ends up being used in court for a number of reasons. They must be signed by the employee and stored by the legal department. We already addressing the people that did this in a one-on-one fashion, but since all of..

...this is happening over the weekend, it isn't easy to get in touch with them personally. The written warning would be more or less a form of "punishment" for this unnaceptable behavior.

@Lilienthal Here is an article about Brazil's Written Warnings and other forms of warnings that may be used by a employer. It may or may not be relevant. We already issued the verbal warning, but it had no effect. Mindwin is correct about severance costs, however not issuing warnings can reflect badly on us if the employee ever seek legal damages, since he can argue we didn't do "enough" to stop harassment.

Fattie

I think Frank should stand up for his brother no matter what.

Ahhh - it turns out there's a "racial" angle. (In Brasil?! surely not!) That overwhelms everything else here. It's all about that.

DarkPurpleShadow

@Kilisi: I still don't see how telling a group of bullies he is as disapointed as they are is going to have any positive efect, and even less to ignore their "negative comments". In my experience, to do so makes the situation only worse :-/

Fattie

I wonder if there's an angle where the OP (not merely Frank, the racial-minority dude) can benefit from this? I can see a lot of psychological damage being put on OP by this whole situation. Compensation looms.

Lilienthal

@T.Sar Ah, I indeed did not know that. Could you edit that information into your question? It's something that not many people here will be aware of. In this case not giving a warning could indeed cause legal trouble but that's really a matter for someone with local experience to address as in this case I would personally argue not to resort to written warnings just yet. This seems more like you need to make your employees realise you're not kidding around here and that you expect them to behave like reasonable adults instead of children. A written warning may be too much and too final.

Kilisi

12:33 AM

@DarkPurpleShadow do you have any actual experience worth mentioning? This is how you do it, stand up for yourself and normal people with brains understand it's not your fault. Say nothing and it just escalates. I was the only brown bouncer in a whitepower bar/nightclub, I know how to handle situations where everyone dislikes you intensely for no fault of your own.

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Discussion on question by T. Sar: Emp…