We preach transparency to our clients (“Tell the truth. Tell it first. Tell it all.”) – not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it works to help protect your reputation in a crisis. But in some situations, you have to be very careful about what you say, especially when issues of privacy are involved.
Certainly, you must protect privacy in some situations. It’s a violation of HIPAA laws for healthcare providers to release private health information without patients’ permission, and it’s a violation of FERPA for educational institutions to release private information about their students without their permission.
But what about your employees? Companies often say that personnel information is confidential, but that’s a matter of policy, not necessarily of law. One of the trickiest situations arises when an employee is accused of criminal behavior. For example, we have worked with numerous schools and social service agencies when an employee is accused of sexual misconduct with a minor. Our clients invariably struggle with the question of whether to release the name of the employee versus protecting his/her privacy.
We believe it’s important to protect privacy and that everyone deserves fair treatment in the criminal justice system. The problem is that you may be very concerned about the employee’s behavior even if authorities don’t have enough evidence to pursue a criminal case. Or the statute of limitations may have expired. You may decide to terminate the employee and find yourself criticized for suddenly firing a long-time employee without explanation. Should you be transparent and tell the truth? If you don’t, what if the truth comes out?
Every case is different but, in general, it’s important to take the side of the victims. Think about what will happen if you don’t reveal an accused employee’s name – at least internally. Are your other employees at risk? And if you fire the employee, are you just passing the problem along to his/her next employer, potentially placing others at risk?
If the answer is yes, then difficult as it may be, transparency is the right approach.
