Is refusing to ‘pass the trash’ one of the key lessons from the Roanoke killings?
It may be one of the most important lessons from the killings of Alison Parker and Adam Ward outside Roanoke this week. I had been talking about this with a number of people in recent days but had not seen much news coverage until I discovered an article published today (Sunday) by CNN.
Former employers are very public now telling us numerous horror stories from when Vester Flanagan worked at their TV station. But likely, when potential employers like WDBJ-TV checked Flanagan’s references, no such information was shared. As we all know, that’s nothing exclusive to TV news. It’s SOP for businesses everywhere.
Fearing lawsuits, the only information that is usually passed on confirms the person was employed and the dates of employment. Is it not hard to imagine that armed with a true picture of Flanagan’s past, Jeff Marks and his managers at WDBJ-TV may have passed on hiring Vester Flanagan and spared themselves unbelievable pain and heartache.
Click here to read Philip Holloway’s article
The killings of Parker and Ward and wounding of Vicki Gardner show the enormous downside to, as CNN legal analyst Philip Holloway bluntly describes it, “passing the trash.”
It’s called passing the trash. Keeping quiet about a former employee’s true nature is about fear and money.
Violent and criminally-minded employees often move from job to job without anyone raising red flags about their bad experiences with them. Employers are afraid to talk about their unpleasant experiences with the ex-employee for fear of retaliation, either physical or through litigation.
Instead, these past employers give only the most basic information (sometimes called NRS: name, rank and serial number) to the prospective employer who calls for references. Some prior employers, no doubt, silently thinking to themselves, “Lots of luck. You’re going to regret hiring him.” It’s tragic that thought stays trapped behind sealed lips.
I remember getting a phone call from a close friend at a competing TV station many years ago telling me he heard my station just hired one of their now former employees. He warned me that this man had a very serious alcohol problem that greatly impacted his work performance. Telling my bosses this, they said their reference check showed nothing of the sort. But, as I was warned, the alcohol problem became very apparent almost immediately and made for a very rocky episode at the TV station. Compared to Roanoke, that was a minor consequence of this business practice.
I don’t know if there is any way to put honesty and candor back into the process of checking someone’s past employment. Lawyers will likely tell us there are many issues to consider. But maybe every HR department should be ordered to keep pictures of Alison Parker and Adam Ward posted on the wall as a reminder of the awful consequences that can occur when you don’t warn people they may be hiring a very unstable person.
