Kathleen Edmond, Best Buy's Chief Ethics Officer

On many occasions in my career I have observed a distinct “slippery slope” in the ethical judgments of an employee or team. I have seen firsthand how an otherwise honest and upstanding person can gradually slide into a pattern of declining standards of professional integrity. The first time someone goes against his or her conscience, it may be quite difficult to rationalize. Chances are, however, that person’s “little voice” will become ever more faint the second, third and fourth times. This is not to say that every employee who fudges an expense report by a few dollars is on a path to become a prolific white collar criminal, but sometimes it really does happen that way.

 An article in the June 24 issue of The Economist caught my eye as it appears to back up a variation of this theme with scientific proof. Researchers at the University of North Carolina wanted to test the effect that dishonesty has on the human psyche and whether even small ethical inconsistencies could alter subsequent behaviors. To do this, they gathered a group of volunteers under the guise of a market research study and gave each participant an identical pair of expensive designer sunglasses. Some participants were told that the sunglasses were genuine and others were told they were cheap knock-offs.

 At the end of the mock focus group, participants were given a simple quiz and told they could receive a small monetary reward, depending on how many quiz questions were answered correctly. Participants graded their own quizzes on the honor system before turning them in. Afterward, researchers discovered that roughly 30% of focus group participants who were told their sunglasses were genuine had cheated on the quizzes. By comparison, 70% who thought they were wearing knock-off sunglasses had cheated. In another phase of the study, researchers asked participants about the honesty and ethics of other people. Those who thought they were wearing fake sunglasses were more likely to feel that people are dishonest and unethical in general. Likewise, the supposed knock-off wearers were more likely to express feelings of self-alienation (e.g., “right now, I feel as if I don’t know myself very well”).

 There are a number of interesting things to take away from this study. As stated in The Economist article, it appeared that “wearing fakes made people feel like fakes,” which then lowered their ethical standards in other ways. Furthermore, the fact that the sunglasses were a gift (and not purchased by) the study participants suggests that “even when it is someone else who has made [you] behave badly, it can affect [your] subsequent behavior.”

 1)    Do you think feeling dishonest can make someone act in a dishonest way? Explain.

 2)    Have you ever witnessed a “slippery slope” situation where someone’s ethical standards gradually declined over time? How did the pattern begin? How did it end?

 3)    Have you ever felt your own ethical standards erode because of negative influences in your environment? Please describe.

 4)    Have you ever resisted negative influences in your environment to maintain your ethical standards, contrary to peer pressure? How did you do it? How did it turn out?

As the world’s largest retailer of consumer technology, Best Buy is frequently at the center of highly anticipated rollouts of the latest and greatest gaming systems, phones and computer devices. Passionate “gotta have it” consumers constantly roam the Internet looking for rumors, leaks or speculation that might help them land one of these products on launch day, before the shelves are emptied. With roughly 4000 affiliated stores and 180,000 employees around the world, it is an enormous challenge to keep all of the pertinent and proprietary details under wraps and we almost always succeed. Once in a while, however, an employee gets caught up in the excitement and – either intentionally or not – shares things not meant for public consumption.

Case in point, some proprietary information about an upcoming product introduction recently appeared on a popular Internet forum. From there, it spread to another online forum, and then another. The post provided details about Best Buy’s plans for a very high-profile launch, information that had been communicated privately within our retail channel. The blogger remained anonymous but made it clear she was a store employee and had the “inside scoop.” The situation quickly came to the attention of the appropriate team within Best Buy and, using a little investigative ingenuity, the source of the leak was identified. When confronted with the issue, the employee admitted to posting the information online and was ultimately terminated for a breach of our Confidentiality Policy.

The story doesn’t end there, though. Our vendor partner was justifiably furious about the leak, creating significant friction within a business relationship critical to both companies’ long-term success. As a result, several parties within Best Buy wanted to pursue the matter further and urged us to present the evidence to local authorities for prosecution. (Note: The employee’s actions constituted a clear-cut theft of trade secrets, a serious crime punishable by equally serious fines and jail time.) Doing so was certainly within our legal right and would undoubtedly send a strong message – both to our employees and our vendor partners – that Best Buy takes confidentiality seriously. However, as noted by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, ethics are often about not doing what you have the right to do:

There is a big difference between the thing you have a right to do and what is actually the right thing to do.

Best Buy ultimately decided that termination was punishment enough and chose not to pursue legal prosecution of the employee. Instead, we focused our energy on devising controls that will prevent similar leaks in the future. The question is, what would you have done?

1.    If it was your company and one of your employees did this, what would you do? Please explain.

2.    There is evidence to suggest the employee in this case didn’t fully understand the severity of her actions or that it was actually a crime. Does that matter? Why or why not?

3.    What if the employee had been bribed by some outside party to provide the leaked information? Would that change your point of view in any way? If so, how?

4.    Thankfully, the vendor partner trusted Best Buy to deal with the matter and didn’t attempt to pressure us into making an example of the employee. However, what if they had? Should a company ever alter the disciplinary actions it takes regarding its own employees to appease a prominent business partner? Why or why not?

(As an interesting sidebar, you may want to ponder this question in relation to the recent investment bank scandal or the ongoing BP oil spill tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico.)

The Ethics Resource Center and Hay Group recently published a research study titled Ethics and Employee Engagement. The topic immediately captured my eye, particularly given the intense focus Best Buy places on employee engagement as measured by tools like our annual Viewpoint survey. The ERC/Hay study offers a fascinating look at human behavior and is, in my opinion, a must-read for anyone who has the responsibility and privilege of managing other employees:

Finding #1:  Positive perceptions of an organization’s ethical cul­ture are associated with higher levels of employee engagement. Furthermore, management’s commitment to ethics is particularly important for employee engagement.

• “The more employees see others being held accountable for ethical actions and acting with integrity, the stronger the ethical cul­ture of the organization will be.”
• “…confidence in leaders is a strong engagement predictor. Today’s employees recognize that their prospects for con­tinued employment, career development, and ad­vancement depend on their companies’ health and stability. And they cannot be expected to bind their futures to those of their employers unless they are confident that their companies are well managed and well positioned for success.”

Finding #2:  Employees who observed misconduct were less en­gaged than those who did not. In addition, engaged employees are less likely to feel pressure to commit misconduct.

• “Only 61 percent of employees who wit­nessed misconduct displayed high levels of engage­ment, compared with 85 percent of those who did not witness wrongdoing.”
• “…employees who perceive pressure to commit a violation are also very likely to observe misconduct in their workplace…Only 6 percent of engaged employees felt pressure to compromise company standards, compared with 18 percent of disengaged employees. In other words, disengaged employees were three times as likely to have felt pressure as their engaged peers.”

Finding #3:  Engaged employees are more likely to report miscon­duct when they witness it, thus reducing the compa­ny’s ethics risk.

• “…en­gaged employees respond differently to observations of misconduct than their disengaged peers.”
• “…study results show that 67 percent of engaged em­ployees who witnessed misconduct reported it, ver­sus only 57 percent of other employees. Perhaps be­cause of increased trust in leadership or a stronger commitment to the company’s ideals and standards, engaged employees are more likely to report obser­vations of misconduct.”

The ECS/Hay researchers went on to offer three takeaways, each addressing one of the key findings listed above. The implications are very clear; when ethical business practices are absent, employee engagement suffers, and vice versa:

Takeaway #1:  Given the profound connection between a com­pany’s ethical culture and employee engage­ment, managers and supervisors should work actively to demonstrate a commitment to ethics, foster open communication, promote ethical role modeling, and encourage accountability.

Takeaway #2:  Higher levels of misconduct and greater per­ceived pressure to commit a violation equate with lower levels of employee engagement. Therefore, in order to maintain high levels of employee engagement, leaders need not only to set an example but to carefully monitor and manage compliance with corporate ethics standards. All levels of management should be careful not to create work environments where employees perceive that hitting deadlines and meeting revenue goals are the priority regard­less of how those goals are achieved.

Takeaway #3:  Efforts to increase employee engagement can serve the parallel purpose of increasing report­ing [of ethical issues]. HR and ethics and compliance profession­als should work together to increase employee engagement, which would help to meet the ob­jectives of both functions.

1)    Have you ever observed a scenario which low ethical standards on the part of a company or leader harmed overall employee engagement? Please describe.

2)    How about the opposite? Have you witnessed a situation in which poor employee engagement may have contributed to a lowering of ethical standards exhibited by the company or its employees?

3)    In the spirit of the classic “chicken or egg” debate, do you think one (i.e., low employee engagement or low ethical standards) generally comes first? Why?

4)    After scanning the Takeaways listed above, which things do you think Best Buy (or your company) generally does well? Where do you see the greatest room for improvement?

Best Buy recently earned some rather embarrassing publicity in a federal court case regarding a $40M fraud scheme involving one of our employees and a vendor.  The employee pled guilty to federal fraud charges and the vendor was convicted in federal court early last month.  Beyond the PR hit, and the financial impact of the fraud, Best Buy was forced to take a hard look at its internal controls and policies and the leaders responsible for them.

The details of the case are readily available on the Internet (simply Google “Chip Factory Best Buy”) but I am most interested in the ethical implications and the power that an individual employee can have on a company – whether for good or bad. The “good” in this case was Matt Dickinson, a manager on our Repair Services team who supports our parts acquisition business. This is Matt’s story.

Curiosity, persistence and a little good luck

Back in early 2007, Matt Dickinson – a long-time employee of Best Buy – was digging into a new role supporting Best Buy’s online parts auction. The company had recently hired an independent third-party agency to facilitate an innovative parts bidding system through which Best Buy purchased computer repair parts on the open market from numerous suppliers. A sort of “reverse eBay,” the auction system enabled Best Buy to quickly and efficiently source the parts needed for computer repairs around the nation, all while theoretically obtaining the best pricing the market would bear on that date for that specific part.

While doing routine research, Matt stumbled upon a $7,500 variance in the payments made to a particular vendor participating in the auction. According to his reports, The Chip Factory had billed Best Buy $7,500 more than the sum total of their winning bids in the parts auction that month. Matt passed this information along to his co-worker in charge of Best Buy’s relationship with The Chip Factory.  Matt was told that it was an honest mistake and would be addressed.

Several months passed when Matt was doing more research into auction results. In doing so, he discovered an invoicing error on the part of one vendor that resulted in large discrepancies in their billings to Best Buy. When shown the data, the vendor was greatly embarrassed by the mistake and immediately repaid Best Buy for any cumulative excess billings. The discovery made an impression on Matt, however. “It occurred to me that there was the potential for a lack of control in this portion of the auction system. I figured if this mistake could go unnoticed here, it could happen elsewhere.”

Matt decided to run a variance report across all vendors participating in the auction and quickly saw a familiar name – The Chip Factory. This latest report showed The Chip Factory had billed Best Buy $175,000 more than the total of their winning bids that month. Again, Matt passed the information to his neighbor, Bob, who pledged to get to the bottom of the issue with his vendor partner. This time, however, Matt also approached a co-worker who understood the complexities of the auction billing system better than he. This co-worker gave Matt some alarming news; when multiplied by the total quantity of parts purchased through the auction, the excess billings levied by The Chip Factory that month actually exceeded $1.7 million.

With the stakes suddenly much larger, Matt requested a similar variance report dating back 18 months. To his horror, it showed that The Chip Factory had consistently overbilled for parts – a variance now totaling tens of millions of dollars. Alarmed but not ready to accuse, Matt checked and rechecked his work. “I verified the numbers many times and in many different ways. It all added up to one conclusion. Somehow, it appeared The Chip Factory had identified and exploited a blind spot in our system that enabled them to selectively over- and underbill us in a way that hid the fact that they were wildly overbilling us over the course of a month.”

At this point, Matt engaged Best Buy’s Legal department, Internal Audit and our Asset Protection specialists. Not wanting to jump to conclusions, Best Buy hired a highly regarded “forensic accountant” to research the auction data. The ensuing investigation quietly continued for more than a year with everyone wondering what had happened. No one, not even Matt, imagined that Bob – the employee in the cube next door – might somehow be involved.

Several weeks later, the truth hit the front page of the newspaper. Bob had been indicted on charges stemming from an investigation carried out by the FBI, U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Postal Inspector. Bob eventually admitted to Federal investigators that he had accepted more than $100,000 in cash, a motorcycle and other lavish gifts from The Chip Factory in return for enabling the fraud against Best Buy. The husband and wife owners of The Chip Factory were subsequently indicted and convicted at trial, and all are currently awaiting sentencing.

Clearly, the implications of this story are enormous. By simply doing his job and asking questions, Matt uncovered what will hopefully be the largest (and last) fraud ever committed against Best Buy. When asked what advice he has to share with others, this is what Matt said:

• “Openness is critical. If you have an environment where anyone can talk to anyone, it enables non-threatening conversations to happen.”

• “Trust your instincts. If something does not smell right, do your homework, investigate and don’t stop until you get a clear answer either way.”

• “Know the business. All the signs were there if we just knew to look for them. Clearly, not enough controls were in place in the auction system in those days relative to the risk to Best Buy.”

• “Listen to the people around you. After the fact, we learned that other employees had asked why we were paying such ridiculous prices for certain parts. As it turns out, they could see something we couldn’t.

• “If someone really wants to rip you off, there is not much you can do to prevent it. No one goes to work thinking the person in the next cube could be capable of something like that, but it’s true. All of the controls in the world cannot eliminate the possibility that a trusted partner might be looking for ways around those controls.”

So, is Best Buy any different today than it was in 2007? From his vantage point, Matt has seen significant changes:

• “The entire culture of my department is different today. It’s very transparent and we are completely open to discussing issues now. Before this happened, our culture was extremely territorial and not welcoming of disagreement.”

• “We have a sincere ‘open door’ mentality now. People can talk to anyone they want – up, down or across the department. That kind of access and trust didn’t exist before.”

• “Leaders focus on assigning roles to people based on their natural strengths so the best talent and the best ‘fit’ is in every job.”

• “Best Buy’s Gifts and Gratuities policy is much more conservative.  Today, you might get an occasional business dinner at a local restaurant. Extravagant dinners and entertainment are out.”

• “Of course, we have much more rigorous controls on everything now. Every process is scrutinized to make sure it is as tight as possible.”

Learning from our mistakes

As painful as this episode has been for Best Buy, it has enabled enormous growth. The balance between trusting the humility and integrity of the people around us and the need for healthy professional skepticism has become much clearer. What have you learned from this story?

1.    Which was more troubling to you? The actions of The Chip Factory or that of the Best Buy employee who assisted them? Why?

2.    Does your team have the kind of “open door” culture that Matt described above? If someone suspected an ethical issue on your team, would they feel free to talk to anyone – up, down or across the department? How can you be sure?

3.    Have you ever seen a situation where “territorial” leadership behavior created an environment where unethical behaviors went unchallenged? What did you do about it and how did it turn out?

4.    Do you think entertainment, gifts and other business courtesies from vendor partners are always OK, never OK, or somewhere in between? If the latter, where would you draw the line?

One of Best Buy’s senior executives recently asked a colleague in the company’s Merchandising department for their honest opinion regarding various brands of home appliances he was considering for personal purchase. As an unrequested, surprise “favor” to the senior executive and a “good deed” for a great vendor partner, someone on the Merchandising team arranged for the senior executive to receive free appliances in exchange for him blogging about his experience with the products.

The vendor was a willing partner – eager for the PR value of the blog – and the executive would benefit from free use of the new appliances. No one would have been harmed.  What ethical challenges, if any, do you see in this scenario?

 1)    Is it OK for a Best Buy employee to exchange favors in this manner with a company vendor? Why or why not?

 2)    Does it matter that the employee was an executive of the company? If so, how?

 3)    What about the blog itself? Could the executive’s comments be compromised in any way by his underlying relationship with the vendor?

 The outcome

This turned out to be an excellent learning opportunity for all.  The above scenario was well into the planning stages until a flag was raised by a departmental Administrative Assistant. Somehow, the situation did not “feel” right to this employee and the issue was brought to the Ethics Office for their opinion. Upon reviewing the situation, the Ethics Office recommended that the Merchandising team and vendor not proceed with the plan. The Ethics Office also reached out to the senior executive who was completely unaware of the activity being taken as a “favor” to him.  What were the concerns?

• Regardless of the good intentions of all involved, such a scenario could potentially create the perception that Best Buy’s leaders are “for sale” to the highest bidder. As noted in Best Buy’s Code of Business Ethics, employees are to avoid any activity that places – or gives the appearance of placing – personal interests ahead of the company’s interests.

• The FTC requires that bloggers involved in product marketing clearly state whether the merchandise in question was obtained for free and/or if any compensation was received.  Without such a disclosure, public comments on the blog could have violated the required transparency.

Broader Questions for Thought and Discussion

• Do leaders underestimate the potential for subordinates to “over interpret” casual inquires / requests – and then take action without being asked, that they think will please the executive?
• Do individuals at any level try too often to please or be helpful, without asking the uncomfortable questions or following their own internal compass?
• Note the courage of the administrative assistant to listen to her inner voice and ask whether this was really in the best interest of the company.  Would you have spotted the risk – and then asked the question?

 This was a situation in which none of the players had any bad intent, and several did not have full context, yet it could have been badly misinterpreted both internally and externally.  As Chief Ethics Officer I am proud of our folks – from the admin who asked the question, to the senior exec who wanted to be sure that he was playing by all the rules. 

 This is a great reminder for all of us:  ethical behavior does not mean that we never make mistakes – it is about quickly and transparently correcting a course of action when needed, and sharing the learning.

In a typical year, Best Buy opens, relocates or remodels 50 or more stores around the country and manages 1000+ existing locations. The employees involved in this work interact with numerous contractors, plumbers, electricians, painters, movers, landscapers and other trade professionals. Along the way, our people often build strong personal relationships with these vendor partners – a natural result of our “Having Fun While Being The Best” culture. These relationships, in turn, sometimes lead to employees asking vendors to give them bids for work on their private homes, and the work being bid at a competitive rate and paid for by the employees.

On the surface, all seems well with this scenario. The employee knows the caliber of work of the vendor and has a solid relationship with them. Why look somewhere else? 

However, when it comes to business ethics, the reality of the situation is sometimes less important than the perception created. Some things to consider:

1.    Is it OK for our employees to engage company vendors in private contracts unrelated to their work on behalf of Best Buy?  Why or why not?

2.    What if you were the owner of a construction company that has bid unsuccessfully for Best Buy’s work in the past? How might this situation look to you? Explain.

3.    Is it an ethical problem if something only appears to be a conflict of interest? If so, why?

4.    Have you ever encountered a workplace scenario where the line between personal and professional relationships became blurred? How did it turn out?

There is currently a trial in U.S. Federal court based on allegations that a supplier defrauded Best Buy out of many millions of dollars. I don’t know how it will turn out, we will wait and see. What is particularly upsetting is the defense strategy of painting Best Buy employees in an extremely negative light with statements that Best Buy employees request gifts from vendors for their personal use - and similar unethical behaviors. This is not Best Buy’s culture. I am disappointed that the actions of a few rogue employees can tarnish our reputation and the honest efforts of the rest of us. Over the past five years in various settings throughout the company we have transparently discussed how to maintain good vendor relationships and weed out bad behaviors that may exist. With that same intent, we will find the lessons that exist in this very unfortunate incident and learn from them. I also ask that anyone reading this – employee, vendor, customer, or community member – who knows of behavior by a Best Buy employee or someone representing the company – that is less than honest, ethical, or appears to be self serving, please reach out to me or someone in the company so that we can correct the situation. For an individual or a company, one’s reputation is our most important asset. We cannot give let anyone act in a way that damages all of us. Thanks – Kathleen Edmond 612-291-7451 or kathleen.edmond@bestbuy.com or if you prefer anonimity, you may file a web report at www.bestbuyethics.com through our third party vendor.

In the early 1960’s, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a now-famous social psychology experiment regarding humans’ tendency to obey authority figures regardless of the ethical or moral implications. The basic premise of the experiment was to measure individuals’ willingness to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. In the Milgram Experiment, participants were instructed by an authority figure to perform an act that apparently inflicted intense pain (i.e., an electric shock) on innocent subjects.

Before the study, Milgram’s colleagues at Yale predicted that only about 1% of the participants could be coerced into inflicting the maximum level of pain (voltage) on the subjects. The vast majority of people, they believed, would resist the authority figure and refuse to subject their fellow man to such treatment. To their horror, however, 65% of experiment participants gradually succumbed to the authority figure and willingly applied what they believed to be massive electric shocks on the subjects. Though every participant exhibited uneasiness with the experiment, only one person actually stood up to the authority figure and refused to inflict pain on the subject. (Incidentally, no one was actually “shocked” in the experiment. The victim was an actor simulating intense pain, but this fact was not known by the unwitting participants. As far as they knew, the pain was real. Details regarding the “Milgram Obedience Experiment” are easily found on Google if you would like to learn more.)

The extreme nature of the Milgram experiment – and the participants’ willingness to go along – makes the implications to “ordinary” workplace ethics especially chilling. If the average person can be commanded by an authority to torture a complete stranger, what does this say about our ability to resist a wayward leader in the workplace? As Milgram noted in his 1974 article titled The Perils of Obedience:

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

1)    Do you have the courage to follow your instincts and act according to your values, even when an authority figure commands you to do otherwise? How do you know for sure?

2)    Do you have a network or “safety net” that can help you live by your values if/when you are pushed to do the opposite?

3)    Have you ever been in a situation where, looking back, you wish you had pushed back or refused to follow an order?

4)    Conversely, have you ever refused to follow an order you felt to be unethical or immoral? What was the outcome?

One of our employees recently asked Best Buy to decrease his hourly rate of pay from $10 to $9. When asked why, the employee explained that he had previously qualified for government assistance in securing health insurance. However, at a pay rate of $10 per hour, he now makes too much money to qualify for government assistance and has been dropped from the program.

On the surface, it appears to be a win/win situation; Best Buy can reduce the employee’s pay by 10% and the employee enjoys an improved standard of living. However, what are the ethical implications of this situation?

1)    Is it ethical for Best Buy to alter its pay standards upon request to enable individual employees to qualify for outside assistance? Are the employees’ motives any of our concern? If so, how?

2)    Does it matter that the employee asked Best Buy to decrease his pay? How is this different from an employee asking for a pay raise in recognition of their on-the-job performance?

3)    Does Best Buy have an obligation to help employees achieve financial independence? If so, where does that obligation begin and end?

4)    Consider an alternate scenario:  What if the employee’s primary objective was to decrease the amount of money paid out in spousal or child support? Would your point of view change on any of the above? If so, why?

The outcome

After careful consideration, we declined to decrease the employee’s pay for a number of reasons:

·         Best Buy pays employees for the job they perform and the value they add to our shareholders. We do not increase or decrease pay for any reason unless it is clearly and directly related to the market value of the work performed by the individual.

·         Though we seek to act in the best interests of our employees at all times, Best Buy will not participate in any scheme that is intended to assist an employee in obtaining goods or services under less-than-truthful circumstances. Far more appropriate options may exist. For example, employees who are eligible for Best Buy’s company-sponsored health plans but unable to afford the premiums may qualify for premium assistance through Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Best Buy regularly offers “special enrollment opportunities” under Medicaid/CHIP for employees who fit this criteria.

·         As a company, Best Buy is committed to helping employees make wise decisions regarding their overall financial well-being. Our shift toward automatic enrollment in the 401(k) plan for all employees hired after January 1, 2010, is one example of this commitment. However, intentionally enabling an individual employee to remain on a form of outside financial assistance actually contradicts this goal. Though we understand there are “break points” at which an employee may lose some form of government assistance as their pay (and standard of living) increases, we want to help employees accept these challenges, continue grow both personally and professionally, and celebrate their ability to live independently.

A Best Buy store employee was recently terminated for Inappropriate Conduct stemming from the theft of another employee’s property. The employee felt that he was treated unfairly and requested a Peer Review. The Peer Review Panel summary is as follows:

The terminated employee was a car electronics installer who worked in the “install bay” of his Best Buy store. The terminated employee admitted to taking another employee’s wire cutter tool from the install bay but claimed it was a mistake of fact. Specifically, he stated that he had made an arrangement to purchase a wire cutter tool from a fellow employee and thought the tool in question had been set aside for him by this employee. He took the tool home at the end of his shift. In fact, however, it was a different co-worker’s wire cutter. Though the terminated employee returned the tool when confronted, the other co-worker lodged a complaint that resulted in the termination decision.

When interviewed by the Peer Review Panel, the store GM explained the issue from the management team’s perspective. She stated that the terminated employee admitted to taking a tool from the store that was not his and had statements from the accusing employee and others to corroborate the situation. The HR caseworker’s recommendation for theft of property was termination, and she agreed. For his part, the terminated employee noted that employees work in close proximity in the install bay and it was not uncommon for someone to accidentally take (for example) another employee’s keys home by mistake, with no disciplinary repercussions.

After hearing all testimony related to the case, the Peer Review Panel overturned the termination decision. They noted there was no legitimate evidence that the terminated employee could have known the stolen wire cutters were not the pair being sold to him by the other employee. They also recommended that installers label and lock all tools to prevent further misunderstandings in the future.

Is the legal concept of “reasonable doubt” relevant to a workplace dispute like this? Why or why not?

What were the pros and cons of the “zero tolerance” approach taken by the GM?

How would you have handled the situation if you were the GM? Why?