People become disillusioned for a lot of reasons. Even employers ‘who treat their employees well’, whatever that means being that it is so subjective, have employees that become disenchanted or burned out.
It really, really, isn't subjective.
In my experience few companies have all happy employees. And I find that how companies treat their employees waxes and wanes depending on a lot of factors. My organizations was very flexible and employee friendly the past couple years when labor was being hoarded and employees were hard to come by. Now it is swinging the other way with less flexibility, more rules and some potential downsizing. A lot of it just depends on who has leverage at that moment in time.
"Now that I can replace any employee at a whim I'm using that leverage to treat my employees 'differently'. I used to treat them with flexibility and was very employee-friendly. Now? Not so much!"
Like. I don't know how to tell you this, friend, but that's the problem.
Just treat them with the flexibility and friendliness the entire time and you won't have the issue. Could you squeeze out a higher bottom line by being mean and inflexible? Maybe. Maybe not. But that's how you go from being a good employer to being a toxic one, -fast-.
It's not really about the shareholders though. If I see a candidate and they're talking smack in public about their former employer it's going to make me wonder if they'll do the same about my company. It's especially concerning if the candidate is seeking a marketing position. But like I said, the rebuke was relatively minor and I wouldn't automatically reject a candidate. And it's not entirely unfair to think that maybe a former employee wouldn't talk smack if management had treated their people with respect.
So you mostly get it, yeah.
No one is saying that those public statements are an issue because someone at Hasbro's feelings might be hurt. The problem with those public statements is that a future employer will wonder if that person has trouble interacting with others. The workplace is a social unit, with many personalities, where there is a goal set by an employer who pays the employees' wages. A manager looking to fill a spot is going to avoid folks who have any whiff of being hard to work with.
Always look at the former employer and ask "What did they do to have employees react like this" first. Because they had the power in the relationship and used it to push someone so roughly they couldn't remain quiet. Then avoid doing that thing.
If there's nothing there, then yeah maybe this particular employee is just a loudmouth who talks crap over nothing or is hard to work with.
If a former employee genuinely has an issue with their former employer, there are many other avenues they can take (filing a grievance, lawsuits, speaking to the press... with a case in hand, etc.). All that a random Twitter blast conveys to future employers is that the poster has little self-control and poor judgement. Especially if that Twitter blast has zero facts or details of what went wrong. If the poster has a legitimate case, there was a more adult route that they could have taken. If they don't have a case, then their reaction was childish, to be kind.
I have a giant rampaging "Meh" for this tone policing argument.
"Take it to court or don't say anything!" is a ridiculous standard that relies on the employee having an actionable case and enough money to lawyer up. It -also- ignores that 48 out of 50 states are "At Will Employment" where people get fired without cause so that bosses can discriminate, freely, without ever getting caught since they don't have to list a reason.
Anyway... yeah. "Childishness" in this case rings really hollow.
Nobody's going to publicly say that. We're going to say we went with the candidate we best felt would fit in. It could be that I have two candidates, both of which are great, and I pick the one who didn't bad mouth their previous employer in a public fashion.
We literally had someone in this very thread publicly state they wouldn't hire someone who spoke out about a former employer.
Showing that that mindset does exist and that people will say it with their whole chest.
www.enworld.org
