Employer's Liability?

Marlin

Registered User
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My wife was recently given a verbal warning by one of the managers in her company. She's not too worried about that in itself because she's not long off retirement, but it turns out the guy has told other people in the company about it, people with no requirement to know about this, who are subordinate to her, and to whom he had no business tattling. Is the company legally obliged to keep this kind of thing confidential, and if so, is it liable for any breach?
 
That's totally unacceptable. Disciplinary issues should be confidential, information should only be shared on a need to know basis with peers / superiors, and very rarely with subordinates. There can be times where some information sharing is acceptable, such as to ensure bad practices aren't propagated down a reporting line, but even then, the communications need should be handled delicately, and certainly not in an around the water cooler gossip session manner.
 
Tell her to make a formal complaint to HR, and that's one manager who should be seeing a written warning.
 
Sorry to hear that.
Definitely raise it as a formal greviance following company procedures.
 
Be careful that any complaint to HR does not provoke a more formalised disciplinary action against your wife by way of bullying retaliation. Once management "groupthink" seizes hold the undoubted merits of your wife's position might be crushed in their desire to be right ! A careful assessment of the character of what your wife is dealing with would be part of any judgment in deciding what, if anything, that she might wish to do. Also, take account of the relative gravity of the warning that was issued to her and what capacity, if any, the company have to blow that up and out of all proportion.

Nearing retirement is actually a bad and vulnerable time to get in a tangle if the employer might be able to fabricate a cynically contrived dismissal with it's obvious financial implications for both sides.

Additionally, your wife might have evidentiary difficulties in getting verifiable proof of the alleged breach of confidentiality. Colleagues can be notoriously spineless in this type of conflict.

Careful now.......
 
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