HRM textbook

196 PART 2 RECRUITMENT, PLACEMENT, AND TALENT MANAGEMENT
with a federal agency. So, it s quite possible the person you re describing will see your
comments and decide you defamed him or her. Common law (in particular, the tort
of defamation) applies to any information you supply. A communication is
defamatory if it is false and tends to harm the reputation of another by lowering
the person in the estimation of the community or by deterring other persons from
associating or dealing with him or her.
The person alleging defamation has various legal remedies, including suing the
source of the reference for defamation. 88 In one case, a court awarded a man
$56,000 after a company turned him down for a job because, among other things,
the former employer called him a character. As if that s not enough, there are
companies that, for a small fee, will call former employers on behalf of employees
who believe they re getting bad references. One supervisor thought his previous
employer might bad-mouth him. He hired BadReferences.com to investigate.
BadReferences.com (which uses trained court reporters for its investigations) found
that a supervisor at the company suggested that the employee was a little too
obsessive . . . and not comfortable with taking risks, or making big decisions.
The former employee sued his previous employer, demanding an end to defamation
and $45,000 in compensation. 89
PRIVACY Furthermore, truth is not always a defense. Thus in some states, employees
can sue employers for disclosing to a large number of people true but embarrassing
private facts about the employee. Here truth is no defense.
One case involved a supervisor in a shouting match with an employee. The
supervisor yelled out that the employee s wife had been having sexual relations with
certain people. The employee and his wife sued the employer for invasion of
privacy. The jury found the employer liable for invasion of the couple s privacy. It
awarded damages to both of them, as well as damages for the couple s additional
claim that the supervisor s conduct amounted to an intentional infliction of
emotional distress. 90
The net result is that most employers and managers are very restrictive about who
can give references, and what they can say. As a rule, only authorized managers should
provide information. Other suggestions include Don t volunteer information,
Avoid vague statements, and Do not answer trap questions such as, Would you
rehire this person? In practice, many firms have a policy of not providing any
information about former employees except for their dates of employment, last
salary, and position titles. 91
However, not disclosing relevant information can be dangerous, too. In one
Florida case, a company fired an employee for allegedly bringing a handgun to work.
After his next employer fired him (for absenteeism), he returned to that company and
shot several employees before taking his own life. The injured parties and the relatives
of the murdered employees sued the previous employer, who had provided the
employee with a clean letter of recommendation allegedly because that first employer
didn t want to anger the employee over his firing.
How to Check a Candidate s Background
Which brings us back to this point: In practice, the references you receive may not be
useful. There are several things that managers and employers can do to get better
information.
Most employers at least try to verify an applicant s current (or former) position
and salary with his or her current (or former) employer by phone (assuming you
cleared doing so with the candidate). Others call the applicant s current and previous
supervisors to try to discover more about the person s motivation, technical
competence, and ability to work with others (although again, many employers have
policies against providing such information). Figure 6-9 shows one form you can
use for phone references. Some employers get background reports from commercial
credit rating companies for information about credit standing, indebtedness,