It puts a worker in an awkward position between loyalty to firm and friends
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February 4, 2007
For four years, one of my readers in Northern California worked for a privately owned company at which, she says, she loved her job and respected her co-workers. Then, a few months before Christmas, she learned something that none of her co-workers knew: The company would begin layoffs around the holiday.
"My heart told me to stay and sink with the ship," she writes. "My head told me to start looking for another job as a backup, in case the flood waters got too high."
By the time the layoffs hit, right before Christmas, she was already in a new job.
"Just about everyone was oblivious to the situation," she writes. "I tried to be ethical and not tell what I knew."
Now, however, she wonders if she did the right thing. Was it right to keep quiet about confidential information? Or should she have sounded the alarm?
The dilemma in which my reader found herself is a classic one: Do you stay loyal to your company and not disclose information that could cause panic? Or do you stay loyal to your friends and tell them what you know, even if you promised to keep the information confidential?
I pressed my reader about how she found out about her company's fortunes, which obviously makes a considerable difference in what obligations she may or may not have had: Was she part of the executive team making the decision about layoffs? Did she overhear a conversation at a private meeting? Did she come across documents that someone had carelessly left in the open?
As it turns out, the answer is none of the above. There was no way for her or any employee to know what was in store, she says, unless he or she happened to be one of the less than half a dozen people who made up the executive team. These executives had been ordered not to disclose the information to anyone else, but one of them broke that confidence by telling my reader and asking her to keep the information confidential.
Apparently that executive did not feel bound by his commitment. My reader did feel bound by hers, however, so she kept quiet -- a decision with which I fully agree.
A more interesting question, and the one she should have asked me, is this: What should I have done when the executive offered to tell me confidential information about the company?
That executive was wrong to single out my reader. Not only did he betray the trust of his colleagues running the company by breaking his word to keep quiet, but also he put my reader in an awkward position. While other employees believed that their jobs were secure, she knew that hers wasn't and could plan accordingly. This gave her an unfair and unasked-for advantage over her co-workers, some of whom were doubtless personal friends.
The right thing for my reader to do would have been to stop the executive as soon as he offered to share confidential information, and either tell him that it was inappropriate or tell him that she was uncomfortable hearing the information. If he told her the information anyway, she should have reported the conversation to the other members of the executive committee.
That may seem harsh, given that the executive was probably trying to do her a favor, but if she truly respects her fellow employees as much as she says she does, she owed it to them to tell the executive committee. Who knows how many other people this executive selectively told and why he told some and skipped over others?
The other executives should know that, if they want to treat all employees fairly, they need to deal with this untrustworthy executive first.
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