Current employer (of 12 years) asking now for references from previous job

YBR

Ath_Wat said:

I think the problem is you and your co-workers, like many people, have a false idea of what a reference generally is, particularly in this situation.  It's not, generally "John is a great guy and a hard worker; I thoroughly recommend you employ him!".  It's "John Smith worked here as a widget-maker according to our records from April 2014 to March 2018.  There are no issues on file."  

You don't need named contacts, or "people to be your references", you all just need to provide the company names and addresses of whoever employed you and let your current employer do the rest.

This is not always the case, my future employer sent out a form to my Line Manager with specific questions about my suitability for the role (I've not, in fact, seen it but I gather it's fairly easy to complete).
My current company only permits the brief factual type from HR but fortunately that was sufficient.
My current industry is rather niche, and certainly when I started there was a tendency for people to make an informal phone call "What's John like?" for the Character part of a reference.

Throwaway1

Ath_Wat said:

Throwaway1 said:

Thanks, everyone. I guess I’m being too sceptical if no one else thinks it is a problem. I’d just honestly never heard of an employer asking someone who had been working somewhere for over a decade for a reference, or to explain a 2 month gap from nearly 30 years ago. I’d expect it at the job offer stage but I didn’t know they even could ask for that after they’d employed someone with no problems for that amount of time. (Well, I suppose I knew they could *ask* but I’m not sure what they could do with the information now - provided it was nothing illegal. It’s a bit late to rescind the job offer).

I think the problem is you and your co-workers, like many people, have a false idea of what a reference generally is, particularly in this situation.  It's not, generally "John is a great guy and a hard worker; I thoroughly recommend you employ him!".  It's "John Smith worked here as a widget-maker according to our records from April 2014 to March 2018.  There are no issues on file."  

You don't need named contacts, or "people to be your references", you all just need to provide the company names and addresses of whoever employed you and let your current employer do the rest.

If you bear that in mind it looks much more straightforward and sensible.  There is no danger unless someone has been lying to cover up the fact they were in prison, or got sacked for theft.

That does make a lot of sense, thank you. The colleague who has been asked for the reference  replied yesterday that she didn’t know anyone who still worked there and was told to provide a personal reference from someone else. She said she’s given the details of another of our coworkers, as they’ve known each other years. I don’t see how that makes any sense but it’s between work and her to figure out and you’ve all convinced me to butt out. 

I’m intrigued to see if I’ll get asked anything but I know I don’t have any employment gaps and they photocopied all my qualifications and ID at the time. It seems to be people who’ve worked there a while so I guess they were less thorough when hiring back then.

Wyndham

I don't really understand why you are interested in this. You haven't been asked for anything, so it's not really any of your concern.

And, I'd also have thought that the process should be confidential - so if others are discussing what they have been asked for, I'm not sure that's quite professional.

And yes, of course, I do know that most workplaces do run on gossip! But I think you need to be careful with what you are discussing, especially if it's in a public or semi-public place.

ElefantEd

Wyndham said:

I don't really understand why you are interested in this. You haven't been asked for anything, so it's not really any of your concern.

And, I'd also have thought that the process should be confidential - so if others are discussing what they have been asked for, I'm not sure that's quite professional.

And yes, of course, I do know that most workplaces do run on gossip! But I think you need to be careful with what you are discussing, especially if it's in a public or semi-public place.

I agree that it's difficult to see why this is exercising the OP so much as they haven't been asked for anything.

On the other hand, there's no reason why the employees shouldn't discuss something the employer has asked them to do. Why would it be confidential? The HR department shouldn't mention it to anyone other than the person they are asking, absolutely - they do have a duty of confidentiality. But the employee is at liberty to talk about their own circumstances if they want to. Why would this be unprofessional?

Debbie9009

I can understand why your colleagues would be concerned as it is an unusual request, but it does sound a lot like they have gone through the records and found that information is missing.

I worked in HR for a large company, we discovered that a lot of documents that looked like they had been saved on the computer system hadn’t.  When you tried to view the document it brought up an error
message.

There were no patterns to the information missing, we had some files where only one document was affected, but also files with lots of documents affected. It turned out to be a computer issue.

It could also be that someone has just left the company and they have now discovered that person hadn’t been keeping the records properly and they are now trying to sort that.

My advice would be to provide the information requested where possible, and where it is not possible to explain that to HR, and there is no reason why they can’t ask why the information is needed. I suspect the answer will be something along the lines of they are just updating the records.

Throwaway1

Wyndham said:

I don't really understand why you are interested in this. You haven't been asked for anything, so it's not really any of your concern.

And, I'd also have thought that the process should be confidential - so if others are discussing what they have been asked for, I'm not sure that's quite professional.

And yes, of course, I do know that most workplaces do run on gossip! But I think you need to be careful with what you are discussing, especially if it's in a public or semi-public place.

There’s no particular reason, it’s just interesting and I wondered what other people thought. It’s easy to get caught in an echo chamber and people at work all thought it highly strange so I thought I’d see how people detached from the situation viewed it. I’m glad I asked as I’ve had very reassuring responses.

Wyndham

ElefantEd said:

Wyndham said:

I don't really understand why you are interested in this. You haven't been asked for anything, so it's not really any of your concern.

And, I'd also have thought that the process should be confidential - so if others are discussing what they have been asked for, I'm not sure that's quite professional.

And yes, of course, I do know that most workplaces do run on gossip! But I think you need to be careful with what you are discussing, especially if it's in a public or semi-public place.

I agree that it's difficult to see why this is exercising the OP so much as they haven't been asked for anything.

On the other hand, there's no reason why the employees shouldn't discuss something the employer has asked them to do. Why would it be confidential? The HR department shouldn't mention it to anyone other than the person they are asking, absolutely - they do have a duty of confidentiality. But the employee is at liberty to talk about their own circumstances if they want to. Why would this be unprofessional?

Because some of the things being discussed, especially in relation to nationality and rights to remain, are protected characteristics.

If the discussion is general, then there is an assumption that everyone is happy to discuss their circumstances with everyone else, which really may not be the case. It sounds like a string of discussion could very easily mean that someone's nationality or ethnicity is discussed in detail by a group which they are not part of. And quite frankly, that's none of anyone else's business.

Ath_Wat

YBR said:

Ath_Wat said:

I think the problem is you and your co-workers, like many people, have a false idea of what a reference generally is, particularly in this situation.  It's not, generally "John is a great guy and a hard worker; I thoroughly recommend you employ him!".  It's "John Smith worked here as a widget-maker according to our records from April 2014 to March 2018.  There are no issues on file."  

You don't need named contacts, or "people to be your references", you all just need to provide the company names and addresses of whoever employed you and let your current employer do the rest.

This is not always the case, my future employer sent out a form to my Line Manager with specific questions about my suitability for the role (I've not, in fact, seen it but I gather it's fairly easy to complete).
My current company only permits the brief factual type from HR but fortunately that was sufficient.
My current industry is rather niche, and certainly when I started there was a tendency for people to make an informal phone call "What's John like?" for the Character part of a reference.

Yes, that certainly sometimes happens - the point is that when a  company requests a reference, particularly after this period of time, the limited one is the basis of what they expect.  If they get that, they will be happy.  It certainly doesn't have to be written by anyone who ever met you.

Ath_Wat

Throwaway1 said:

Ath_Wat said:

Throwaway1 said:

Thanks, everyone. I guess I’m being too sceptical if no one else thinks it is a problem. I’d just honestly never heard of an employer asking someone who had been working somewhere for over a decade for a reference, or to explain a 2 month gap from nearly 30 years ago. I’d expect it at the job offer stage but I didn’t know they even could ask for that after they’d employed someone with no problems for that amount of time. (Well, I suppose I knew they could *ask* but I’m not sure what they could do with the information now - provided it was nothing illegal. It’s a bit late to rescind the job offer).

I think the problem is you and your co-workers, like many people, have a false idea of what a reference generally is, particularly in this situation.  It's not, generally "John is a great guy and a hard worker; I thoroughly recommend you employ him!".  It's "John Smith worked here as a widget-maker according to our records from April 2014 to March 2018.  There are no issues on file."  

You don't need named contacts, or "people to be your references", you all just need to provide the company names and addresses of whoever employed you and let your current employer do the rest.

If you bear that in mind it looks much more straightforward and sensible.  There is no danger unless someone has been lying to cover up the fact they were in prison, or got sacked for theft.

That does make a lot of sense, thank you. The colleague who has been asked for the reference  replied yesterday that she didn’t know anyone who still worked there and was told to provide a personal reference from someone else. She said she’s given the details of another of our coworkers, as they’ve known each other years. I don’t see how that makes any sense but it’s between work and her to figure out and you’ve all convinced me to butt out. 

I’m intrigued to see if I’ll get asked anything but I know I don’t have any employment gaps and they photocopied all my qualifications and ID at the time. It seems to be people who’ve worked there a while so I guess they were less thorough when hiring back then.

I think somebody is getting confused. A personal reference is a completely different thing from an employment reference.  Far better though that you just let them sort it out between them.

ElefantEd

Wyndham said:

Because some of the things being discussed, especially in relation to nationality and rights to remain, are protected characteristics.

If the discussion is general, then there is an assumption that everyone is happy to discuss their circumstances with everyone else, which really may not be the case. It sounds like a string of discussion could very easily mean that someone's nationality or ethnicity is discussed in detail by a group which they are not part of. And quite frankly, that's none of anyone else's business.

So every conversation about "Where are you from?" or "What did you do before this?" is unprofessional? Don't think so. If someone doesn't want to talk about their nationality or right to remain or anything else in the circumstances in the OP, all they have to do is keep quiet. Just like if the same issues were raised under any other circumstances.