Divulging work information

Posted by: Fisbey on 25 August 2004

Further to the 'stress' post - I have a concern at work too.

We have an ex employee who went away on maternity leave and was/is ready to come back to work. The long and short of it is that our manager and her couldn't agree on working hours and she subsequently handed in her resignation.

However she has now decided to take the company to court on the grounds that she wasn't offered a suitable position - I have to say it would seem to be a personal 'battle' between her and the manager but she phoned me and asked me to send her training record to her for her CV (this was before she decided to take action against the company) - I duly sent the training record and forgot about it - I am in charge of training records incidentally.

Now this morning she wrote to me and specifically asked for information on the current situation in the department, I took exceprtion to this and spoke with the manager who informed me I shouldn't have even sent her the training record and I could be sacked if our HR department found out, but that he would 'sort it out' if necessary.

I have now written to the girl and point blank refused to divulge information to her on the grounds that it jeopardises my job.

I am well hacked off as I don't trust my manager not to use my training record oversight against me and also with this girl for being somewhat manipulative.

Any advice?
Posted on: 25 August 2004 by Mike Hughes
Small mention for the Freedom of Information Act, which is of significance here. Otherwise I fall in line with Tom's comments which are spot on.

One addition. A threat from a line manager re: what action someone else might take if they found out your actions is clearly defined in caselaw as bullying behaviour. Note it down. Address it with them and move on. Could come in handy at a later stage but I seriously doubt there will be a later stage.

Nothing quite as funny as watching (on the outside) an organisation turn a complaint into a personal issue. All complaints have a personal element but how it gets handled is often 'interesting'.

Mike
Posted on: 25 August 2004 by garyi
More over any training record must be signed by the person it belongs too each time training is received otherwise there is no point in holding the training record information.

Therefore the person that asked for it is likely to have seen it many time, unless her line manager never bothered to train her....


Which of course might be grounds for a complaint, not your problem though.
Posted on: 25 August 2004 by Fisbey
OK some things to think/act on, however the problem, as it were was not that she got her training record but the fact that she should have gone through our (offsite) HR dept not me...

She has this morning written back and apologised for 'putting me on the spot' and said she woon't ask anymore - which is nice...

Blimey I always wondered why I stopped getting involved in office politics etc!....

Thanks very much for the replies.
Posted on: 25 August 2004 by HTK
If it's her training record she's entitled to see it - and anything else on file. Your manager's reaction to this is complete bollocks. Whilst it may be wise to withold marketing materials, product manuals, notification of future ecents or anything else which may be commercially sensitive, it's not apprporiate and probably not legal for your employer not to deal with her requests.

I haven't read the stress thread but it sounds like you are being very poorly managed. Even if he really believe you did wrong (which you didn't) an audit of dates, events and timings will show the true picture.

Cheers

Harry