SHE CUT HERSELF...HELP!

HRMM

One of our employees was overheard on the phone telling someone that she just cut both of her arms with scissors. They ran and got the two owners. The owners took her to the hospital and called her father on the way. Owners also waited on the father to arrive before they left hospital. On the way to the hospital she kept saying she didn’t want to loose her job. One of them told her “let’s just focus on getting you to the hospital right now”. This poor girl obviously needs some help God Bless Her. I was out of the office today and just found out. We are a small company and don’t have FMLA. The owners don’t want her back in the office. They want to force an LOA or terminate. I’m concerned for everyone’s safety. This is a new one on me and I need some advice…HELP!
MM

joannie

Check out the answers on "EE is a cutter" in this section. You may find some help there. Good luck.

Paul in Cannon Beach

On a very superficial level, you have an employee who committed an unsafe, reckless act on the job. You could justify a suspension based on that fact alone (assuming that would be consistent with your policies and practice).

On a deeper level, you have a very troubled person working for you. You haven't provided any information on how long this ee has worked for you or what relationship has been established.

Perhaps a two week suspension would allow time for careful consideration of how to proceed, an examination of this employee's past record, and a calm assessment of whether reinstatement is feasible.

I can only imagine that the thought of an employee trying to take her own life on the premises could be traumatic for your other staff, particularly those who may have a loved one take their own life. Have you given any thought to how to process this with them?

You really don't have policies for these kinds of situations, do you? They are staggering and I think some time should be allowed for your response to be formulated.

HRMM

Thanks to all for the reponse. Paul, I was hoping for your input. You seem very wise!
This is definitely a senative situation. She has been here for about two years and has a terrible attendance record. In fact was just written up with an oral warning last week. She has a medical condition that has caused her to miss work often. We have been very leaniant with her due to her condition, but need someone here to do the work. A co-worker has come forward this morning with a copy of an email (on personal email) where she said "they can't fire me for a medical condition...its not legal". We were heading in the direction of the warning system in our policy for attendance...and this puts a different perspective on things. We are having a meeting with our staff later this morning to reassure them that we are taking every precaution to keep them safe. They are all talking and saying they will all leave if she is allowed to return. As you can tell...I am not use to these things happening and was not sure about our policy until I got in this morning. Our policy does state "all employees are expected to conduct themselves in a non-threatening, non-abusive manner at all times". "Any employee who commits or threatens to commit a violent act against any person while on company premises will be subject to immediate discharge". I think this will apply to yesterday's event. I have breifly spoken with one of the owners and he is with me on this. I don't like my job too much today! TGIF
Thanks,
MM

Paul in Cannon Beach

I was feeling confident of your judgement until you said I was wise.

I hope others will contribute on this issue. This is a fairly complex situation and it would be helpful to have a variety of perspectives from this board.

dlail

This particular situation sounds like it's resolved with the "violent act" policy, you might want to include "against another individual, including themself".
Unenforced policies ARE the policy. Any time a published policy isn't enforced, that's the new standard. Unpublished policies equal practices. That's one of the hardest transitions for a small company trying to follow best practices.
Psychological leave is still a medical leave and should be handled that way. In circumstances like that, medication might be part of the treatment, and as a result, moderated behavior would improve absenteeism and job performance.
Paranoia isn't unusual and understandable. However, employees don't hire and fire. Owners want to eliminate the problem too.
Employer can terminate her w/o violating Title 7 or ADA, unless the medical condition cited previously meets that criteria (I don't think suicide attempts count as accommodation). Regardless, she violated policy. ESC might interpret as "inability to do the work" and allow for collecting unemployment, but then w/ only 2 years of service, that isn't a bad deal in exchange for not having the employee.

Rambled but I speak from the following perspectives: HR capacity, small business-cum-FMLA subject business, owner, sibling of multiple-attempts employee.

hrdilemma

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 09-04-07 AT 11:55AM (CST)[/font][br][br]Well all I can say is I feel your pain. We had a similar situation but ours was not on premise as in your case. We were a much larger company with over 300 EE's and so we had to look at ADA, FMLA and LOA. There is no easy way to deal with these issues. Co-workers questions, supervisors uneasy, liability for employees and company. Ours turned out OK, I hope your's will as well, our EE resigned. I will follow your case to see how it plays out.

DMK

In our organization this incident would justify termination. We had a similar situation and we placed the employee on leave for medical reasons and told her she would be paid for this leave and keep all company benefits as long as she acquired medical attention. We made it clear to her before the leave began that at the end of the leave she would not be able to return. Since you are a small company, you can specify the amount of leave you want to give her knowing that this will set a precident for other similar situations (which, of course, I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy). We found that this treatment protected our employees but also provided assistance for an employee who truly needed help.

HRMM

I appreciate all the input and found it very helpful. To update everyone...our employee called yesterday wanting to return to work. We asked her to take some time to rest. She said she was expecting this to happen. We had a meeting and decided that we had no other choice except termination and didn't want to drag this out. We terminated her today for safety reasons as stated in company policy (causing harm to any person..."including self" has been added to our policy due to this incident) and agreed to pay one month of COBRA so she can get some help. This seemed to satisfy her. I hope none of you ever encounter this as an HR person or on a personal level. Very sad.
Thanks again,
MM

hrdilemma

I think this was most generous and a very progressive approach.