Letting People Go Securely

  • Comments posted to this topic are about the item Letting People Go Securely

  • I like to send them out to get Krispy Kremes for the office and then change the locks before they get back.

    [font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
    Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc.
    [/font]
    [font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]

  • Ouch, do you at least buy the donuts?

  • Steve Jones - Editor (3/15/2009)


    Ouch, do you at least buy the donuts?

    Oh, that's the best part... 😛

    [font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
    Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc.
    [/font]
    [font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]

  • 59% of people leaving steal data? I find that surprisingly high. How are they defining 'steal data'? On the other hand, what ever happened to ethics in the workplace? (I can already hear people laughing as they read this)

    I have worked one place where you were immediately escorted from the building when you gave notice (it was a known policy obviously). So I tied up all my loose ends before my planned exit day and documented everything that needed to be documented. When the day came for me to leave, no one was available to meet with me to discuss me leaving. So I just sent them an email telling them I quit, and explaining I would have gladly worked a 2 week notice if allowed, but knew it wasn't, and then I escorted myself out. No one ever contacted me about why I left, they just sent me my final check. It was a very awkward situation. I have always worked a notice and left on good terms with my other employers. That company also had a no-rehire policy...if you leave, you can't come back. I had no problems with that since, afterall, I was quitting because I didn't want to work there.

    If it was easy, everybody would be doing it!;)

  • Steve,

    I have a hard thinking that paying you for not working your last two weeks is punishment. 😉

    My employer escorts employees out immediately. If you resign, you are paid for two weeks without having to work; if you are fired, you are not paid the two weeks. This is the only place I've worked that has had that policy.

    It doesn't matter to me what is done.

  • So what percent who STAY have stolen data?

    Julie

  • Julie,

    I hate to ask.

  • The punishment isn't for you, it's your co-workers. If you resign today, and they're not aware, then your work gets shuffled to them, starting today, because you resigned.

    I understand the policy, and it probably makes sense in many ways. However, I've also seen this work when the policy was that you'd work out your two weeks.

  • I worked for a prominent insurance company in Ohio for almost 5 years up until last summer. I was in charge of our HR/Payroll system, Company Intranet, document imaging solution, user id management and network access control... I could go on. Bottom line, I had my hands in a lot of pies with privileged access to all. The company was becoming very strict in documenting everything, locking down permissions, etc. Prior to me turning in my notice (I knew about a month before that I would be leaving), I started working on all of my documentation, training my counterpart and making sure the company would be ready for me to leave. I thoroughly expected that when I turned in my notice, once the CIO got wind of it, he'd ask me to leave. No such luck.

    They did in fact want me to stay for the two weeks and continue to train and document procedures and processes. I find it odd because I know the CIO was gunning for me to leave anyway because I was unhappy. With as much access as I had, I could have done some massive damage. But I didn't. I played the honesty card and kept my word that I'd do my best to help prepare everyone for the day when I wouldn't be around.

    Bottom line, I think companies SHOULD ask an IT employee to leave when they put in a notice. I have two beliefs that back this up.

    1. There should be at least some cross training going on so someone could potentially fill a role temporarily along with adequate system documentation.

    2. If the employee is putting in their notice, it means they don't want to work for you anymore and could potentially hurt the company by staying. Especially if they're going to work for another company in the same industry.

    Just my 2 cents

    The distance between genius and insanity is measured only by success.

  • I am in favor of the middle road for this. The employee should be expected to work out their two weeks, but they should have their privileges revoked immediately. Their last two weeks should be spent documenting and making sure that the employees that will be replacing them know how to do the job. Having them around to ask when something doesn't work right is priceless.

    --

    JimFive

  • Sam Iam (3/16/2009)


    59% of people leaving steal data? I find that surprisingly high. How are they defining 'steal data'? On the other hand, what ever happened to ethics in the workplace? (I can already hear people laughing as they read this)

    In my experience, the three most common forms of data stolen by people in our field leaving are:

    1) Your own code from work

    2) Your work phone contacts

    3) Your own Email contacts list

    What people easily forget is that all of these things are (almost always) your employer's property and NOT yours.

    [font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
    Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc.
    [/font]
    [font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]

  • I've seen a bunch of different ways to handle this. Some people are let go immediately and paid. Others (myself included) were asked to stay on and then some. It depends on the people involved and I think a blanket policy is a poor choice. Some should be escorted out right away. Others should stay and help with a transition, though perhaps with reduced rights.

    As for stealing data - I'd love to know how they define data. Is it a list of contacts, some general scripts, and a couple of documents/templates? For what purpose was it taken? In some cases, it's part of a set of "tools" that you may use regularly and would have to re-create elsewhere. Sometimes it's just a set of docs that you want to be able to look at because you invested yourself heavily. If there's no malicious intent, I don't see too much of an issue and (as noted elsewhere in this conversation) it's probably already been copied beforehand in any case. Now if you're taking a contact list because you intend to use that to take business from your former employer or you take something that is actually a piece of code that gives them a decided advantage - that's a different story and I can see that being prosecuted if used.

    I'll admit to keeping a copy of some of the scripts I worked on and I'll also admit that it was pretty pointless for me to do so. The only thing they did was take up space on my machine (excepting the couple of times that my prior workplace called and asked for assistance that I was willing to provide 🙂 ). Outside of that, I really don't want to reference old code, documents, procedures, etc from a prior job.

    I agree that an immediate escort off of the premises is generally more of a punishment to existing workers than the one leaving, but not all see it that way. I think in once case, someone gave notice before getting the quarterly bonus check and was escorted out immediately. He eventually got the bonus check that he actually deserved, but I don't think he was expecting to leave so soon. We definitely learned from that - wait until _after_ getting your bonus check to turn in your resignation. 😀

  • I've had valuable employees in previous lives who were upset that they didn't get asked to leave immediately when they turned in their two weeks' notice. In a couple cases, worthless employees had been "encouraged" to move on and were immediately exited upon giving notice... but the valuable employees who are moving on felt abused because they didn't get a two week vacation like the slackers. Whether I should've or not, I felt bad about not treating them the same.

  • David Reed (3/16/2009)


    I've had valuable employees in previous lives who were upset that they didn't get asked to leave immediately when they turned in their two weeks' notice. In a couple cases, worthless employees had been "encouraged" to move on and were immediately exited upon giving notice... but the valuable employees who are moving on felt abused because they didn't get a two week vacation like the slackers. Whether I should've or not, I felt bad about not treating them the same.

    This is one of the costs of being a valuable employee.

    The compensation for being a valuable employee is supposed to be, well, that they are better compensated for it. If you've done that, then you have nothing to feel bad about. If you haven't done that, then that's something much worse to feel bad about.

    [font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
    Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc.
    [/font]
    [font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 34 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply