Off Duty Conduct
anacasey
6 Posts
Hi
Has anyone had experience with this type of situation, and do you have a strongly-worded policy dealing with off-duty conduct that you would be willing to share with me?
The situation is this: nonprofit agency - social services - hired a sexual health educator. It was discovered (not at work, or on work equipment) by another employee who reported it to HR/ED, that this educator has a personal website that is pornographic in nature - apparently very explicit (not illegal), and he is very popular/notorious and apparently well-known on the Internet for it, and it endorses the very lifestyle that he educates the agency clients to NOT engage in, so it's a conflict for sure, as far as agency public image, his position/job duties etc. I've looked into all the legal aspects and I understand that it's not a problem for the employee to be terminated (that's what the agency will be doing) and we are at-will (FL) etc. and the type of off-duty conduct is not legally protected etc.
My question is if anyone has had similar experiences and do you have any tips on how best to deal with this type of situation, which is coming up more and more, what with all the blogging sites, MySpace and Facebook type sites, and does anyone have a good policy sample to share. I did draft one which is pretty complete but I purposely left it a bit vague, but I was asked to make it more specific to dealing with this type of growing problem situation, even from the hiring point-of-view - we work with many nonprofits who seem to be having this type of problem more and more.
Thanks!
Ana
Comments
the best way to be specific is to give examples of what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. note that they are mere samples and not an exhaustive list.
by the way are you sure the person who operates the site and person you hired are one in the same? it sounds like too big of a conflict to be true. that said truth is often stranger than fiction.
While a company must respect the privacy of employees, this inappropriate behavior would directly affect your organization's reputation, and thus it's ability to do its business. So in order to protect the interests of your organization, you are justified in asking this employee about this off-duty conduct. (Can you image how this would hit the local media!)
Reg is right; you must verify that this person is responsible for the website. However, my advice is to contact your organization's legal counsel as soon as possible.
http://www.na.fs.fed.us/wihispanic/employee_handbook/default.htm
This website might be able to help you with your policy as well as with others.
I agree with both you and Reg, and thanks to both of you for your input.
Yes, we did verify that he is the person....nothing seems to be surprising any more.....truth is bizarre and disturbing