contacting a suspended friend at work

KILL_BILL

so a very good friend of yours at your workplace has been suspended.

You have been instructed not to speak or contact this person/friend until instructed from the management at your work.

Where do your loyalitys lie - with your friend and you contact them to support them and find out what happened

or do you comply with the statement made from your boss/company


??? and what would you reasons be for making your desicion ?

piglet25

If they were just a work place friend then its different to being a personal friend, in which case I would

MoneyMission2015

If I was friendly with them outside of work, socialised often etc then I would contact them but would not talk about work. If they brought it up I would listen to what they had to say but I would not share that information with anybody else & I wouldn't tell them anything that I may hear in work. I would tell them that I'd been told not to speak to them & I would also let my employer know that as we are friends outside of work, contact is inevitable. I would make it clear to my employer & my friend that I was staying out of the situation & would avoid any conversation about it.


However, if they were only a 'work friend', so somebody I only ever spoke to while I was at work and didn't socialise with, then I wouldn't contact them until it had all blown over.


That's just me personally, I'm sure there will be others who have a different opinion.

Voyager2002

Friendship is important, so I would send the friend a card so that they knew that I was thinking about them and wished them well.

If I valued my job then I would avoid doing anything that the management could object to, such as finding out anything about what happened. So I would make contact in writing rather than having a conversation to avoid any possibility of compromising myself.

DUTR

KILL_BILL wrote: »

so a very good friend of yours at your workplace has been suspended.

You have been instructed not to speak or contact this person/friend until instructed from the management at your work.

Where do your loyalitys lie - with your friend and you contact them to support them and find out what happened

or do you comply with the statement made from your boss/company


??? and what would you reasons be for making your desicion ?

Depends what the charge is and if your contact may jeopordise the case in anyway.

DKLS

Depends on the level of the friendship, and what they have done.

I did once go against company rules to communicate with a workmate, as they were stitching him up. Was all a bit one sided so I told him what to say to make it go away.

ohreally

Do not make contact.

Your instructions are clear and your friend would be in breach of his suspension terms if he communicated with you.

DigForVictory

If you must, send a card.

There may be robust legal reasons for enforcing a silence that you may not know the details of, so I'd make it as obviously oneway but friendly as I could.

Few friendships are worth risking the other party's job for.

tomtontom

This is a real grey area in legal terms - how far can your employer dictate what you do in your private life? There's no hard and fast answer, and just because a contract or handbook may state something that doesn't make it lawful. Personally I would think about whether they are a real friend or just someone you've got to know through work. If you do make contact you need to ensure the work issue is not discussed - and I certainly wouldn't be sending cards that may indicate your support on the work issue.

bluenoseam

I wouldn't make contact, if you've been told not to contact anyone there's a better than fair chance that the person suspended has been told not to have any contact with any colleagues as well. They will likely understand this & won't be expecting you to contact them & will understand that doing so could harm their case should it get to disciplinary.

elsien

You need to consider what the person may have done, and whether contact will jeopardise any investigation. I can give an example of a colleague who was defrauding vulnerable adults - I would have sworn blind he wasn't capable of such a thing and supported him all the way. Until he admitted it. I think in those situations it would be very difficult to keep off the topic of work, however hard you both try. Because people want support in a very difficult situation, and you can't support them without talking about it.
So it's a judgement call. But people can act out of character. So bear in mind your judgement could be wrong, and if it is, what might the impact be?