Anonymous tip

Mimi · May 2001

Have any of you ever responded or followed up on an anonymous phone call stating one of your employees is on drugs?

HansOSteele · May 2001

Mimi, we have followed up on such a tip in past to only find it to have no merit.
Our corporation has a Substance Abuse & Control Policy. It indicates that if we have reasonable suspicion we may require the employee to submit to substance testing.
It is necessary to add to this, the fact that we must investigate any such claim in the light of the specifics of reasonable suspicion.
What I mean is that we use the tip to lead to closer observation of the employee, and we assess the employee's performance and we see if thewre is any further information or signs that could lead us to a reasonable suspicion.
If there is any such indicators, we follow up, if not then we simply observe and assess.
I would not recommend that an employee be subjected to this sort of scrutiny lightly. You should always be sure you have proper cause that a reasonable person would find proper.

Hope this helps a bit.

ebg · May 2001

I have received several such "tips" and not one of them was legitimate. Since I usually took the phone call, I would try to gather as much information as possible. I would also try to gauge the veracity of the information, based on what I knew of the employee. Since the caller usually wanted the employee fired, I would directly ask the person to give me their name, indicating that I could not take specific action against an employee based on an anonymous call. One caller threatened to go the media. I told them to do so and that we would cooperate in any investigation as necessary but I would not take action against any employee based on an anonymous call. The person never followed through.
I fully believe that most of those calls are made by people with an axe to grind against the employee - frequently an ex-spouse or such. Although it is certainly incumbent on us to listen, evaluate the seriousness of the accusation,and perhaps even engage in some quiet observation and investigation, I would never take action just based on a call.

Gar · May 2001

In my previous HR life for a large corporation, we received anonymous tips alleging illegal drug use. We spoke to the employees' supervisors to determine if they had any suspicions about the employees. If not, we ignored the tip. Think about it this way: How would you want to be treated if someone called your boss alleging you are a drug user?

smarti · May 2001

I have found that tips are like rumors, usually bad news or information. To avoid "tips" we have a policy that a supervisor or the tipster would have to complete signing their name. We found generally that people want to rumor or tip and not be accountable for it. We also have an extensive policy to prevent these so called tips. I believe that if the employer acts on tips, rumors or such without the proper policies in place, two things can happen. 1. You put the employer at risk for all kinds of imaginable lawsuits. 2. You are assisting the employee or supervisor who relys on rumors instead of policy. We include in our policy; illegal drugs defined; policy violations; the consequences of violations; legal searches; drug & alcohol testing; types of testing; testing procedures; minimum threshold levels; informed consent form and contract (1page) of 0 tolerance. I'll be happy to share the policy if it would help. I believe the employee willing to give a tip or rumor should only do so with full concious and responsibility. Good luck.

Anonymous tip

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