Or maybe clients failed to listen, act
WHILE WAITING FOR TROPICAL STORM IRMA to come calling — right now no one can predict its path with any degree of accuracy — I spent a few minutes with one of my favorite sites: Advisen’s Front Page News (FPN).
Two articles caught my eye as examples of either
- (a) A practitioner who failed to play the “what if” game or
(b) A client who failed to appreciate, and act on, the practitioner’s recommendations.
Crisis Is Over at Texas Plant, but Chemical Safety Flaws Remain
CROSBY, Tex. — Residents have returned to their homes here in the shadow of the Arkema chemical plant now that the fires at the plant are out and the immediate safety hazard has passed.
Because of a gap in federal environmental laws long criticized by chemical safety experts, Arkema was not even required to address, in the emergency plans it submits to federal regulators, the risk posed by the volatile chemicals that overheated and set off fires several times last week, sending dense black smoke billowing over this town near Houston. Read entire article at http://tinyurl.com/ydc3omu7 (If Google snafus the URL, copy and paste it into a browser and delete everything up to “http://tiny…”)
The second paragraph of the story above is just one of a lengthy article, but it suggests that if the company HAD a risk manager the risk manager failed to see the hazard (and therefore failed to offer mitigation or avoidance measures) OR company management, understanding there apparently was no federal mandate with which it must comply, ignored the practitioner’s advice.
I wonder how the company’s insurer(s) will respond when they get a bill for all the damage caused by the failed coolers. A good insurance company might have been aware of the “gap in federal environmental laws long criticized by chemical safety experts” and if aware, were recommendations made to management? Often risk management practitioners are ignored, but insurance company suggestions can prove expensive if ignored.
I will concede that there was no history of inundating rains that could have prevented the air conditioners — necessary to keep chemicals from going “boom in the night” — from functioning. As with everything “risk management” there is a risk vs. mitigation/avoidance cost calculation.
THE SECOND article confirms that there are more risks in the HR department than “just” harassment claims and lost I-9s.
The following is excerpted from the Butler|Snow web site and is headed Handling workplace vigilantes
- Recently, an Oregon Home Depot worker claimed that he was fired for helping a customer pursue a man she claimed kidnapped her child. Home Depot ended up changing its mind and allowed him to keep his position. However, this brings to mind a couple of Tennessee cases in which employees claimed they were unlawfully fired for acting as “Good Samaritans.”
In the case of Little v. Eastgate of Jackson, Jason Little was working as a store clerk when he saw a man assaulting a woman across the street. Little grabbed a baseball bat and confronted the assailant, causing the assailant to flee. He was a hero, right? That’s not what his employer thought. His employer fired him because he abandoned the store to become involved in an altercation that was “none of our business.”
Makes this scrivener think of Kitty Genovese
A few years later, a Tennessee federal district court considered the application of this reasoning in Miller v. Home Depot. In that case, Murfreesboro Home Depot manager Robert Miller ran out of the store’s front door after hearing a commotion. He saw a coworker telling a man with a crowbar and a wad of cash to give back the money. The man threw down the crowbar and ran. Miller chased after him and restrained him before the police arrived. He was a hero, right? That’s not what Home Depot thought. Home Depot wasn’t grateful that Miller had retrieved the stolen money and instead fired him for violating company policy against unauthorized apprehensions and detaining shoplifters.
So what can be learned from all of this? There are good business reasons for discouraging employees from taking the law into their own hands. When that happens, things often don’t go as smoothly. For instance, what if the perpetrator in the one instance had a weapon? Miller’s actions could have caused a bad situation to become a lot worse.
Nevertheless, employers should think twice before disciplining an employee who helps stop criminal activity. If the employee was helping rescue someone from the “imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm,” then Tennessee law prevents the employer from firing him.
As with most things, there are two sides to this coin.
As pointed out in the Butler|Snow article, on one hand, while many people would act to prevent an assault (such as kidnapping or assault), on the other the assailant might be armed and quite willing to injure or kill anyone who stood in the way, including the proverbial innocent bystander. (This is one reason why people with concealed carry permits do NOT start shooting in crowd situations.)
The point for management and HR is that policies that effect employees should be published and ALL personnel should read and understand both the policy and the consequences for violating the policy.
BUT, unless someone — HR, risk management practitioner — plays the “What If” game, the policy will be unwritten and subject to challenge in the courts. In Tennessee, the employee will win.
The complete Butler|Snow article may be read at http://tinyurl.com/ybsjhq73
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
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