Can ex employers give a bad reference?

tiger

i employers will refuse to give reference rather than give bad reference (idont know wether its law ) but there is another reason.the employers themselves wary of their reputatio,so its unlikely to potray themslves as employing bad ppl or scaring away future employees.

dprovan

I agree with above posts clearly it is wrong to write slanderous or fals reference however I will always write a reference as opposed to refusing, my view is if I can stand over it I will say it and I would expect nothing less from thos I ask for references, in addition my line of work is child protection so it is imperative that people give honest/accurate references and take responsibility for doing this.

Debt_Free_Chick

An employer can give any reference they want, providing it is accurate and truthful. Most employers will not give a bad reference, unless the bad points were raised with the employee and there is a record on the HR file of the action taken e.g. you are consistently late - your manager speaks to you several times, then gives you a verbal warning. A note of the verbal warning goes on your HR file, so this would be included in the reference.

If it's a "friendly" remark about you being late i.e. off the record, then employers are unlikely to include that in the reference. The reason being, that if the conduct was bad enough to warrant a mention on the reference, then why was it not raised formally with the employee?

There was case about 10 years ago where KPMG gave a bad reference to an ex-employee. The ex-employee took KPMG to Court and won, because the things mentioned on the reference had never been raised formally with the employee.

For this reason, references tend to be written by HR staff based on whatever is on the HR file. If it ain't on file, it don't go on the reference

JonSimmonds

As other replies state, most employers will refuse to write a "bad refference" and instead just not give one.

However some employers will provide details of holidays taken, authorised leave, un-authorised leave and time of sick, which can count very badly in some cases for the most innocent of reasons.

The company I work for has a policy that all references go via the HR dept at head office (who have acess to all the data on time off etc) and staff outside of HR can only ever give personal references.

yvonne13_2

I had a really nasty shock in work today, the man from HR had come down from head office and I overheard him say he has come down to sack my co-worker.
The meeting room is next to the kitchen and I heard every word what he saying.
My co-worker and I used to work together in at my last job then we were both took volentry redundancy and we started this new job together in January this year. I heard him say that my co-worker had lied and said she had not been made redundant but was sacked for having lots of time of work. When the boss said how do you know he said he rang the office and asked to speak to our old manager but they asked him to refer all questions to HR and it was the receptionist that gave him this information. I found this very underhand as I know it is all lies as she and I both requested all copies of personal information held about us be sent to us which they did. (I asked for mine due to the redundancy being volentry and I didn't want that to stop me getting another job, even though they said they wouldn't put it was volentry as it could cause future problems in gaining employment I still wanted to check).
What he did was nasty and to make matters worse they have suspended her with no pay pending further equiries. She offered to bring in the redundant letter and he said hers could have been a fake to cover up her absence.
I was so upset for my co-worker that I phoned my old place of work and spoke to HR about what has happened. They said they never take calls in relation to references, they do it all by letter and line managers are told not to give out personal information, everything should go through HR department.
I told them that it was the receptionist that gave the information. They said they will speak to the receptionist, and my co-worker has now said she is going to raise a greivience against our ex-employee for giving out incorrect liable information on her.
It was a good thing that I overheard the conversation so I could forewarn her what was going on, atleast she was prepared when they called her in the office and when she asked them where they had got ther information from as it was incorrect they said from a source they were not willing to name.
Both companies are going to be in involved in something big now.

jenniewb

yvonne13 wrote: »

I had a really nasty shock in work today, the man from HR had come down from head office and I overheard him say he has come down to sack my co-worker.
The meeting room is next to the kitchen and I heard every word what he saying.
My co-worker and I used to work together in at my last job then we were both took volentry redundancy and we started this new job together in January this year. I heard him say that my co-worker had lied and said she had not been made redundant but was sacked for having lots of time of work. When the boss said how do you know he said he rang the office and asked to speak to our old manager but they asked him to refer all questions to HR and it was the receptionist that gave him this information. I found this very underhand as I know it is all lies as she and I both requested all copies of personal information held about us be sent to us which they did. (I asked for mine due to the redundancy being volentry and I didn't want that to stop me getting another job, even though they said they wouldn't put it was volentry as it could cause future problems in gaining employment I still wanted to check).
What he did was nasty and to make matters worse they have suspended her with no pay pending further equiries. She offered to bring in the redundant letter and he said hers could have been a fake to cover up her absence.
I was so upset for my co-worker that I phoned my old place of work and spoke to HR about what has happened. They said they never take calls in relation to references, they do it all by letter and line managers are told not to give out personal information, everything should go through HR department.
I told them that it was the receptionist that gave the information. They said they will speak to the receptionist, and my co-worker has now said she is going to raise a greivience against our ex-employee for giving out incorrect liable information on her.
It was a good thing that I overheard the conversation so I could forewarn her what was going on, atleast she was prepared when they called her in the office and when she asked them where they had got ther information from as it was incorrect they said from a source they were not willing to name.
Both companies are going to be in involved in something big now.

Wow! That receptionist has (I think) broken the law (need to check this but think she has given false information which has caused your co-worker harm) the word for this is slander http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation (Similar subject).

If you can, and still need help, try to speak to your new companies HR department. If you feel they are unhelpful try the CAB or if you have one a Union rep.

What a silly receptionist, if anything bad happens it'll be on her head as well if you decide to take it further!

Hope your co-worker gets her suspended pay back and if she doesn't do take it further. I'd also wonder why even if you/she had any problems with time off, if it has not had any impact on your work so far at your new place, why it would affect your position now? I'd say your boss is unprofessional and maybe go the next level above them (area manager for example) but thats drawing conclusions to information I don't have. You seem to be handling it fine though even if it should never have happened!

(PS, your boss should have not been discussing this with anyone other then those directly involved, not sure who you overheard them talking to but just bare this in mind if you do need to take action: balls in your court!)

yvonne13_2

Yes I agree our boss is very unprofessional, she totally embarrased one of my other co-workers the other day by shouting across the office at her saying are you not going to say sorry your late! The poor girl was so embarrased that she just started crying, she wasn't even late she got in bang on time.
After that incident I have started keeping records of what the managers has been doing to staff as I don't want them starting any crap with me.
I personally have not had anything done to me and people say nothing will because I get in work early and crack on with my job and don't get involved in gossip. I have learnt over the years when you work in situations like this keep your eyes forward, that way people don't know that you can hear what they are saying.

When I first started the job I heard the management talking about someone in work saying they are sick of her having time of due to her being pregnant, and they were planning on finding ways to get rid of her,they looked frightened when they saw me stood there listening and for the following couple of days they kept there eye on me to see if I would go back and tell the woman what they said.
Since then as they saw I never said anything they have become brave and talk right infront of me because they think I will not say anything to anyone.

I do feel like I want to report the management for there lack of employee data. Because the boss and her two side kicks are making life unbearable for staff in there and if anyone challenges them they drag them in the office with no neutral person and tell them off like a naughty school child. Then the person has time off due to stress then they pull them for that when there back of the sick.

I am going to give my co-worker all my notes that I have diarised and hopefully this will help her take on both companies and save her job and hopefully HR will raise an investigation and then people will be able to come forward, as there is no union in work and people have no-one to fight there corner.

I pray management don't turn there attention to me as that would be the biggest mistake they would have made in there working history.