Breach of confidentiality question?

Comms69

RagingBull66 said:

Hi All
I need some advice in regard to my employer. I am currently going through the process of an investigation at work for gross misconduct and so far everything seemed well, however, I have just had a call from a work colleague to advise me that he had tried contacting one of senior managers (who is conducting the investigation) on her mobile phone and the call went through but she did not answer it. My colleague assumed that she had left him on hold and he went on to heard a very lengthy conversation she was having with my director with all details of the investigation and their thoughts. I’m not happy with this as now I feel all trust is lost as a third party is now privileged to details if the allegation and investigation. Any advice please?

Start your own thread. 

Literally this is nothing (except your colleague hopefully getting sacked also)

Manxman_in_exile

KiKi said:

My personal take on it is that you had reason to believe it wasn't confidential, as you were told they were aware of the plan. Equally, you were asked to review something which was inaccurate, and so it was important it was corrected.
...
However, I don't think they could argue breach of confidentiality - you were told it had been shared, it turns out there were two plans, and you were asked to check a document which was incorrect so you corrected it. I think they could argue breach of common sense, though. Personally, I'd just be apologetic, explain the situation, and leave it there. You'll be leaving anyway!

Lungboy said:

robatwork wrote: »

You're coming at this from the angle:

Everything we are told or sent as part of our jobs is OK to discuss outside the company unless marked as confidential

Everyone else on this thread is thinking:

Everything we are told or sent as part of our jobs is confidential unless marked as able to be disclosed outside the company

Which position seems more reasonable to you?

That seems a bit of a misrepresentation of the OP's position, which sounds more like

"I was told our partner company were aware of the plan so I corrected what i saw as an error in their report."

I must admit, I have a lot of sympathy for the OP in this situation, and tend to agree with the above two posts.

If the manager who asked the OP to review the report on the OP's department written by the partner company didn't want the OP to mention the redundancy plan, then they should have told her not to mention it.  Just as it seems bleedin' obvious to posters here that the redundancy plan "must" have been confidential, it seems equally bleedin' obvious to me that if my employer has commissioned a partner to write a report on my department that is being made redundant, and my employer asks me to comment on that report, then it would be expected to mention the redundancy plan - unless told not to!

This sort of thing reminds me of that bit in Dr Strangelove where it is pointed out to the Russian Ambassador that there is absolutely no point in developing a doomsday machine as the "ultimate deterrent" if...  you don't tell anybody about it!!!

Comms69

Manxman_in_exile said:

KiKi said:

My personal take on it is that you had reason to believe it wasn't confidential, as you were told they were aware of the plan. Equally, you were asked to review something which was inaccurate, and so it was important it was corrected.
...
However, I don't think they could argue breach of confidentiality - you were told it had been shared, it turns out there were two plans, and you were asked to check a document which was incorrect so you corrected it. I think they could argue breach of common sense, though. Personally, I'd just be apologetic, explain the situation, and leave it there. You'll be leaving anyway!

Lungboy said:

robatwork wrote: »

You're coming at this from the angle:

Everything we are told or sent as part of our jobs is OK to discuss outside the company unless marked as confidential

Everyone else on this thread is thinking:

Everything we are told or sent as part of our jobs is confidential unless marked as able to be disclosed outside the company

Which position seems more reasonable to you?

That seems a bit of a misrepresentation of the OP's position, which sounds more like

"I was told our partner company were aware of the plan so I corrected what i saw as an error in their report."

I must admit, I have a lot of sympathy for the OP in this situation, and tend to agree with the above two posts.

If the manager who asked the OP to review the report on the OP's department written by the partner company didn't want the OP to mention the redundancy plan, then they should have told her not to mention it.  Just as it seems bleedin' obvious to posters here that the redundancy plan "must" have been confidential, it seems equally bleedin' obvious to me that if my employer has commissioned a partner to write a report on my department that is being made redundant, and my employer asks me to comment on that report, then it would be expected to mention the redundancy plan - unless told not to!

This sort of thing reminds me of that bit in Dr Strangelove where it is pointed out to the Russian Ambassador that there is absolutely no point in developing a doomsday machine as the "ultimate deterrent" if...  you don't tell anybody about it!!!

Old thread pal**  

(good analogy though)