Letters of Appreciation from 3rd Parties
Texas Katz
20 Posts
My boss recently heard letters of appreciation from 3rd parties should not be placed in employee personnel files (i.e. victim's family members commending employee for doing an outstanding job during trial). She was told by a labor lawyer this was not permissable.
My thoughts: I've never heard anything like that. I don't see where the problem would lie except in a couple of instances. In the case where the employer moves to take some sort of adverse action against the employee and bases it on performance, the employee would have the letter to help refute the performance basis. The other instance would be in a discrimination case where a promotion (or some sort of advancement or salary increase) was not given to an employee because of performance they would again use it as evidence that the stated basis for denial of the promotion was pretext. It would be some evidence, but a letter from a 3d party would mean little against a record of performance problems. However, to not have it in there is almost worse in these scenarios because then the employee, assuming they were aware of the letter, would say you were destroying the good stuff about the employee in order to make them look bad. From a liability position of just having it in the file I don't see the problem.
The groups' thoughts on this topic?
My thoughts: I've never heard anything like that. I don't see where the problem would lie except in a couple of instances. In the case where the employer moves to take some sort of adverse action against the employee and bases it on performance, the employee would have the letter to help refute the performance basis. The other instance would be in a discrimination case where a promotion (or some sort of advancement or salary increase) was not given to an employee because of performance they would again use it as evidence that the stated basis for denial of the promotion was pretext. It would be some evidence, but a letter from a 3d party would mean little against a record of performance problems. However, to not have it in there is almost worse in these scenarios because then the employee, assuming they were aware of the letter, would say you were destroying the good stuff about the employee in order to make them look bad. From a liability position of just having it in the file I don't see the problem.
The groups' thoughts on this topic?
Comments
I have a hard time believing a labor attorney actually told your boss that it isn't permitted... surely there is some misunderstanding along the way.
One company I worked for had a "hall of fame" wall and posted these letters for about 2 weeks when received to give employee some recognition. However, again, what you do for one, you must do for all.
Just because an employee gets a "goodie letter" doesn't mean you couldn't terminate them. (What if they had taken funds or something else like that.) Therefore, I don't see why this would cause any problem if they are in the file.
E Wart