Previous EE now Temp ???????

Arynne · August 2007

I need advise on the legal issue with bringing ee's that have been fired for policy infractions back to work through temp agencies.
I have advised against such a practice but I was looking to see if anyone else has had to deal with this type of situation?

Dutch2 · August 2007

I can't speak from a legal point but we did have this almost occur once. When the Temp agency informed us that they had a former ee of ours at their agency we asked who it was and simply informed them that we would prefer if they sent someone else. The Temp agency works for us, so that was all it took and this particular ee was not the one they sent.

Arynne · August 2007

I agree that they should only send us who we want. It is a manager, who was involved in the termination, that is requesting this person. I am trying to express to him the dangers of this type of practice.

Thanks

joannie · August 2007

If the manager fired him, why in the world would he want him back as a temp?

Arynne · August 2007

I am told it is out of desperation. I have been out voted and the GM has authorized such a practice for "non-serious" terminable offenses. I still do not agree.

joannie · August 2007

I'm with you. Keep telling yourself, "I love my job".

Arynne · August 2007

Everyday!!!!

Irie · August 2007

We bring back through a temporary agency previous employees who have been terminated for attendance issues under our point-based attendance policy. We would never hire them back however.

I don't believe we would ever bring in an employee who would have been terminated for any reason other than attendance.

Arynne · August 2007

Thanks

ritamcguire · August 2007

We have a written agreement with our two staffing agencies that requires them to ask every candidate if they ever worked for our company. If the answer is "yes", the staffing agency calls us. If the person was fired or had some other issue while at our company, we say we do not want that person. If the person just went on to greener pastures or whatever, we might take them. I wouldn't worry about any legal issues. You wouldn't want a trouble maker back, but then you might want someone who already knew your work environment and would require less training.

NaeNae55 · August 2007

If it has been a really long time and the reasons for leaving were not severe, we might let them come here and work as a temp. However, knowldege or not, we would not want someone who left recently. It causes too much confusion among the other employees. Will some assume the employee has been hired back so their behavior didn't matter? Will some assume you hired them only to fire them again? There are other issues that can come up too.

I would avoid it if I could. In this situation, all you can do is warn and document that you tried.

Good luck!

Nae

System · August 2007

So you had an employee who violated a policy, serious enough to warrant termination - yet its ok to have them still employed through a temp agency? You still are legally considered co-employers to a certain degree, even though the employee is employed by the temp agency. So the signal you are sending to the employee is that his policy violations really weren't serious enough to result in termination - because you are merely re-employing him through alternative means. It gives the employee some fodder for claiming "wrongful termination" and certainly sends the wrong signal to the rest of your workforce. You might as well hang a banner that says "employees will not be held responsible for policy infractions"

Arynne · August 2007

I feel the same way. I have a hard time rationalizing re-employing someone who we had to terminate for any reason. Unfortunately prior to my getting here the pattern was to term someone for policy infractions and rehire them as part time, until they "earned" their fulltime status back through good behavior. This is a very small company less then 150 ee total.

Back to this ee... We fired him for failure to provide documentation after being gone on FMLA leave. He was out for 15 weeks before we finally got tired of asking and hearing bad excuses so we let him go. Then he filed a VEC complaint trying to claim wrongful termination. It was denied. His time to file an appeal hasn’t even expired and he is now back as a temp.

I feel like we are telling everyone in the building it doesn't mater if you follow the rules because we will still let you get paid, somehow. We are now paying $10.75/hr for him through a temp agency and his ROP was only 8.00 plus he is working OT cost us almost 17.00/hr.

This is not even to get into the reports of this same person coming in intoxicated and never being documented, tested, FIRED. He also assaulted a manager and it was never recorded, again way before I got here. Now the rationale is, that's only hear say, of course because no one was documenting any ee infractions.

And yes before you ask they had an HR consultant at the time who was obviously giving them sound advise.

Sorry so long but this week has been rough and at least those of you out in cyber space understand my frustration.

Thanks a bunch!

Previous EE now Temp ???????

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