For terry24 only

Response 1

Just because Darrell served time for embezzlement in his previous job.  Does not mean that he still should be punished for it now!  We would like to know the story behind why he was let go, but we do know that he served time for one reason or another.  Plus his actions with another female while he was on his probation period he should be terminated.  This is sexual harassment.  As we all know sexual harassment is the unwanted action or verbal actions that offend another.  In this case Darrell violated the sexual harassment policy of the bank.  We all also know that just being fired over race hopefully is not in the banks cards.  When there is a clear cut of what Darrell did towards another female associate.  Darrell can be charged with sexual harassment and the company has to do a full investigation on this as soon as possible.  The bank cannot wait to take the appropriate action.  If the bank does wait then they could face charges also.  During the first interview the interviewer should have ask more questions in depth.  There is a fine line on what kind of questions you can ask, but you have to ask certain questions in a certain way so that they disclose the information of their last job or history of jobs.  If he disclosed that he had served time then the interviewer should have ask more questions in concerns to this.  The interviewer may have had unethical behavior. 

 Dipboye, R. L., & Colella, A. (2005). Discrimination at Work : The Psychological and Organizational Bases. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

Covey, A. (2000). The Workplace Law Advisor : From Harassment to Discrimination Policies to Hiring and Firing Guidelines: What Every Manager and Employee Needs to Know. Cambridge, Mass: Perseus Pub.

Oppenheimer, A., & Pratt, C. (2008). Investigating Workplace Harassment: How to Be Fair, Thorough, and Legal. Alexandria, Va: Society for Human Resource Management.

Response 2

      While the bank’s concern is not unfounded, they are only able to terminate Darrell on the grounds of his prior embezzlement conviction if they correctly followed Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulations. The FCRA states that the bank must have obtained permission from Darrell to conduct the background check and ensured that the extent of the background check only includes publicly available information (Sayre, 2013). At this point, if the bank wishes to terminate Darrell, they must first notify Darrell of the possibility of an adverse action. In this particular case, this means that the first interviewer should have mentioned that the company holds the right to let him go on this basis. However, since this was not mentioned to Darrell during the interview process, he cannot be held accountable for his previous mistake.

        On the other hand, since Darrell committed the crime of sexual harassment against one of this coworkers, this could be the ground for his dismissal. Any action that unnecessarily has a negative impact on the work of another employee or make them feel uncomfortable could be grounds for termination. However, there would need to be a record on file either indicating that this interaction made the female employee feel uncomfortable or a sexual harassment policy stating that this behavior is not tolerated at work. If the former is true, this is a case of hostile work environment sexual harassment (EEOC, n.d.).

        The main ethical concern in this situation is that the first interviewer should have informed Darrell that he will be hired with the condition that he will serve a probation period to ensure that his behavior has truly changed. Since the bank did not do this, they cannot fire him for a crime that is not relevant in this scenario. Furthermore, the bank should have handed Darrell a sexual harassment policy that explain which behaviors are and are not appropriate for work. It is difficult to argue that he should be terminated on this basis if he wasn’t given this documentation before the start of his employment and asked to sign it to verify understanding.

References

EEOC. (n.d.). Sexual Harassment. Retrieved from     http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm

Sayre JR. (2013). Employers Beware! Don't Let A Fair Credit Reporting Act Claim Sneak Up     On You. Retrieved from http://www.wardandsmith.com/articles/employers-beware-fair-       credit-reporting-act-claims