Providing inaccurate or inappropriate information or asking inappropriate questions may provide grounds for discrimination, defamation, or invasion of privacy lawsuits. Employers may not ask about or give out information about any of the issues protected by state or federal law. These issues include age, race, religion, national origin, or disability. Also, employers may not give false statements that damage a former employee’s reputation; nor may they provide any embarrassing personal facts.

However, it is important that employers understand they have an obligation to provide information about harmful tendencies and failure to provide that type of information can lead to negligent hiring issues by the new company and lead to claims of misrepresentation.

Many companies skirt the issue by only providing “Name, Rank, and Serial Number”, which is only a verification of title, date of hire and salary or earnings. This approach cannot help the company seeking information and may in fact harm the chances of good employees finding a good job. If the employee cannot find a job, they may file for unemployment, which may affect the old company and add to their unemployment taxes.

What is the answer? Employers can limit their liability and still provide useful information by:

• Develop and follow a written policy on reference checking that specifies who may give references, what information may and may not be given, to whom may information be given.
• Limit the number of people in your organization who may give references and make sure they are trained in how to give information to others.
• Always make sure you have the written consent of the former employee to provide a reference, and if possible indicate that the reference could be based on past performance reviews.
• Ask for a written release of liability from the employee (usually provided through the new company) before a reference is given.
• Give only truthful, job-related information based on your documented facts.
• Do not give references with prejudices or malice and never, ever, make statements about the character of an employee.
• Make sure the person you are giving the reference to is authorized to receive it and has a legitimate need for it.
• Train those who give and receive reference on how to do it legally and correctly.
• Document all reference requests and what information you provided.

Finally, when in doubt, check with your state to see if you are immune to civil liability for good-faith references and if necessary, ask legal counsel for guidance. This would be especially true if there are issues that may seem to be “delicate”. No matter what side of the coin you are on, do your due diligence and check and give references when needed.

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Let’s look at the different types of training that may be important to your organization.

1. Job Skills Training – A responsible organization will take steps to provide employees the means to improve their skills. This is especially true with new hires, who are not fully up to speed and may need a program to help them not only develop their skills but to reinforce the company policies and procedures. This type of training will help off-set the time to answer questions or to re-do a job because it was not finished to company standards.
2. Compliance Training – Employment compliance issues are constantly in the news and are always changing. Staying current on compliance issues may be critical to the liability of the company and may be crucial for new supervisors and current management to take. If your company is mandated under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) to provide safety training, you may be at risk if you do not comply.
3. Employee Development – Helps a company place employees in the right position to reduce turnover and poor morale. Effective training will not only address the needs of the individual employee, but also communicate to the employee the needs of the organization.
4. Succession Planning – Training of your star employees into lower, middle, and upper management will give them the opportunity to learn new techniques and to develop new skills. This type of training helps the organization to plan for growth and retirement issues.
5. New Supervisor Training – All too often, a good, hard worker is promoted into a lead or first line supervisory role – without any training. By taking the time to analyze the capabilities of the employee and training them into this new role, will safe the company time and money and the individual the peace of mind of knowing what is expected in this new role.

Training, just like other functions, is a process. If you plan ahead and put a good, solid program together, training will only benefit your organization. With proper training, you can transform disengagement into employee engagement.

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