A newer supervisory-level staff was involved in interviewing a receptionist who started a few weeks ago. The receptionist is from a culture that is much more gregarious, often touching people on the arm as she speaks. The supervisor brought this behavior to my attention this morning in an email, which they described as problematic. Somehow a jump was made to Google this receptionist’s background and the supervisor included links to the results in the email. They demanded to know if any of the found details were known at the time of hire and what I was going to do about it.
Our industry is heavily regulated and employees at all levels are required to pass a background check. Based on the results, the government dictates how we proceed; it is not up to me or our business. When I explained this process as well as the various worker protections in our state (Ban the Box, etc.), and let them know it is well beyond the scope of their role to look up and report information on employees, they resigned within the hour and yes, the word is it’s all because of HR.
I don’t understand. Are 75k jobs that easy to come by? What, exactly, did they believe I was going to do with the information?