Outside Companies that handle corporate ethics? How do they work?

[Francisco]

I'm pretty much asking out of sheer morbid curiosity.

Turns out a couple of former co-workers had issues with their newish boss. These varied from creating a hostile workplace, to denial of benefits (sick time, doctor's note was provided), and plain apathy to their conditions (one had a broken leg, and he was told he gets no time off because he used his vacation, and the other was extremely sick and needed a week off - she was told "if you're not gonna come and do your job, I'll find someone who will". She wound up working the entire week while extremely sick, and subsequently stepped down. ) They met with a supervisor (above them, below the abusive boss), and that supervisor called the corporate ethics line on their behalf.

He was given a password and login key to a website - which shows the ethics complaints are handled by an outside company.

How do these companies usually work? I know there is a no-retaliation policy, but really, if they ask this guy point blank "did you deny benefits to these employees" - and wind up unable to prove he did it - well... I can't see how they could work together again... I figured someone here would know about it...

[Ashmada]

Magnets. They use magnets.

[Priran]

don't ask a scientist

[Restrat]

they create an environment where you think it's safe and neutral, and then tell your employer everything you said so they can fire you.

[Eurell]

They are horrible. I worked for Home Depot for awhile and they used one of these. When my wife was pregnant, she called me while i was at work and told me she had to go to the hospital. My co-workers who saw me get that phone call informed by supervisor and I left to pick up my wife.

I called my supervisors boss (the manager) while I was at the ER and let him know what was going on. I talked to him 3 times that day and let him know I had to stay with my wife the following day and take care of her (doctor told her to stay in bed). All he said to me at the time was, of course, np np, i hope everything is ok.

A month later my supervisor gives me a write up for leaving early that day and missing work the next. I explained what happened and that I spoke to the manager, and he said this write up was coming directly from that manager. Apparently I did not give proper notice for taking my pregnant wife to the ER to be able to get that time off approved. Because Home Depot did away with HR (there used to be one HR person at each store, now there was maybe one for every 11 stores or so) I had to call their outside company with my complaints.

The outside company required 2 weeks to investigate a complaint. After 2 weeks, they answered a question I didnt ask. Im like, thats great... but what does it have to do with my complaint? So they needed another 2 weeks to investigate again. I called back and the person said that the complaint was already marked as resolved so no one ever investigated. So I had to wait another 2 weeks for them to investigate again. After this final 2 week wait, they said he had discretion to basically do w/e he wanted as far as they could tell. Fuck that.

Long story short, I talked to district HR, regional HR, and wrote letters to the president of the company and a bunch of people underneath himI also informed my supervisors that I was gonna see if I could get a news reporter to make up some shitty human interest (or w/e this would be called and used for on a slow news day lol) piece on it. All stuff to the affect of, I thought this was a family company, I won't be able to stay with a company that punishes people for taking their pregnant wife to the hospital, etc etc. Then one day some high-up shows up, calls a meeting with 30 random people from our team, asks about the situation, fires the manager on the spot.

tl:dr Outside companies are shit. Only way to get shit done is to go right to the top with a legitimate complaint.

[Eurell]

they create an environment where you think it's safe and neutral, and then tell your employer everything you said so they can fire you.

And this. Totally forgot to mention that after I called the outside company, the manager was yelling at the supervisors to find out who filed a complaint about this. Only reason he didnt go right to me was because he knew I worked with a lot of close friends and a lot of people were pissed.

[Melena]

That does not surprise me with Home Depot. My friends husband got shafted by them hard. They pretty much stole his entire crew in an hours cutting maneuver then eventually wrote him up/fired him for not making sales numbers with a skeleton crew that at times had his department empty for hours on end.

[archibaldcrane]

You do realize that sitting outside a home depot hoping to get picked up by a subcontractor in a pickup truck isn't really "working at home depot" right?

[Melena]

lawl, he's as white as Miz, so he wasn't one of them Though the store he did work at did have plenty of under the table help waiting for work outside.

[Eurell]

lol, I always loved watching them swarm a car just slowing down for the stop sign.

[guartz]

Take a shit in your bosses office and drag it around a bit.

That's the best HR resolution you can hope for.