What Went Wrong? Essay Example

While the bank’s concern is not unfounded, they are only able to terminate Darrell on the grounds of his prior embezzlement conviction if they correctly followed Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulations. The FCRA states that the bank must have obtained permission from Darrell to conduct the background check and ensured that the extent of the background check only includes publicly available information (Sayre, 2013). At this point, if the bank wishes to terminate Darrell, they must first notify Darrell of the possibility of an adverse action. In this particular case, this means that the first interviewer should have mentioned that the company holds the right to let him go on this basis. However, since this was not mentioned to Darrell during the interview process, he cannot be held accountable for his previous mistake.

On the other hand, since Darrell committed the crime of sexual harassment against one of this coworkers, this could be the ground for his dismissal. Any action that unnecessarily has a negative impact on the work of another employee or make them feel uncomfortable could be grounds for termination. However, there would need to be a record on file either indicating that this interaction made the female employee feel uncomfortable or a sexual harassment policy stating that this behavior is not tolerated at work. If the former is true, this is a case of hostile work environment sexual harassment (EEOC, n.d.).

The main ethical concern in this situation is that the first interviewer should have informed Darrell that he will be hired with the condition that he will serve a probation period to ensure that his behavior has truly changed. Since the bank did not do this, they cannot fire him for a crime that is not relevant in this scenario. Furthermore, the bank should have handed Darrell a sexual harassment policy that explain which behaviors are and are not appropriate for work. It is difficult to argue that he should be terminated on this basis if he wasn’t given this documentation before the start of his employment and asked to sign it to verify understanding.

References

EEOC. (n.d.). Sexual Harassment. Retrieved from http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm

Sayre JR. (2013). Employers Beware! Don’t Let A Fair Credit Reporting Act Claim Sneak Up On You. Retrieved from http://www.wardandsmith.com/articles/employers-beware-fair-credit-reporting-act-claims