My company wants me to implement a policy stating that we will not tolerate employees putting their resume online.  Can we discipline employees for this?  Is this legal?  I don't agree with this but the boss is very adamant about this.  He feels that if employees are looking for another job they won't be committed to this job.  Does anyone out there know if other companys do this or not?   

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HRINAZ

For the boss to want to take such a strong stance on this, it seems to me that this has been a big issue for your company. I think the better solution then putting together a policy is to find out why.  If you are finding a number of your employees' resumes online, then you need to find out why these individuals want to leave.  Is it the environment (culture), job duties, pay, hours, benefits, etc?

If I find an employee's resume online, I will sit down with them or have the manager sit down with them.  Sometimes we can save the person and fix the issue and sometimes you don't want to save the person (if they have bad performance, attitude, etc.)

 

I agree with IT HR. Talk to your employees. you need to know what is going on and why your employees are posting their resumes. Some may just be doing it to find out they are still wanted by other companies and have no real desire to leave. maybe they need to feel needed by your company. Others may truly be looking to leave and you need to know why in case there is something that can be done about it. BTW What percentage have you found online?

I'm a bit surprised by this.  How can an employer forbid an employee for looking for another job, unless they are using the employer's resources--time, computers, paper, copy machine, etc?  What are they trying to accomplish by trying to discipline employees for looking for another job.  I agree with the other posters that it may be a sign of disatisfied employees if they are actively looking for another job--you should try and address the root cause, if possible.  It may be a monetary reason that you may or may not be able to fix.  but, maybe it is something else--kinda sounds like that old joke:  the beatings will continue until morale improves!

My resume is always up even while I'm employed.  You never know when you will get a better deal.  That's the nature of things now.  Employers generally do not feel compelled to do everything they can to keep people on staff; people should not feel compelled not to hang out their shingle.  More immportantly, having your resume up is not evidence of an active job search.

I think employers can fire employees who post their resumes on job search boards and I don't think they can be sued for that practice.  In the states whose UI practices are known to me, employees who are fired for looking for a job off company time do get UI benefits.  Because many people feel as I do, many people who are employed have their resumes on job search boards.  I think it is a silly and old fashioned view of the workplace to suggest that employees whose resumes may be found on Monster should be fired while at the same time suggesting that you can fire or lay off employees any time you feel like it for any legal reason or no reason at all (which begs the question of whether or not your lack of a reason was pretext for an illegal reason so always have a reason, haha!)

One motivation for encouraging employees to stay with a company is the avoidance of costs caused by employee turnover.  To calculate employee turnover rates, BLR has several types of turnover rate calculators for employers.  The “top performers” turnover calculator is available at no cost at http://hr.blr.com/timesavers.aspx?id=19033.  If an organization is losing talented employees, it’s important to figure out why.  The calculator figures out the employee turnover rate for top performers and helps identify turnover patterns.  There may be a pattern that points to a problem with a supervisor, department, workload, or any number of other issues, including inappropriate conduct or harassment.  Having a conversation with a top performer whose resume shows up online can give an employer a chance to change things for the better – and maybe keep a good employee in the process. 

BLR_HREditor:

One motivation for encouraging employees to stay with a company is the avoidance of costs caused by employee turnover.  To calculate employee turnover rates, BLR has several types of turnover rate calculators for employers.  The “top performers” turnover calculator is available at no cost at http://hr.blr.com/timesavers.aspx?id=19033.  If an organization is losing talented employees, it’s important to figure out why.  The calculator figures out the employee turnover rate for top performers and helps identify turnover patterns.  There may be a pattern that points to a problem with a supervisor, department, workload, or any number of other issues, including inappropriate conduct or harassment.  Having a conversation with a top performer whose resume shows up online can give an employer a chance to change things for the better – and maybe keep a good employee in the process. 

 

I'm glad to see BLR staff take a more active role on the forums.

However, I'm going to reiterate that the presence of a top performer's resume on Monster is not evidence that they are planning to leave.  In fact, if the employer chooses to have a conversation with that person, the employer needs to be careful not to tip their hand too much.  What if the employee decides that they should negotiate terms and conditions of work from a position of power after the conversation?  That could actually create the very situation the conversation was trying to prevent: loss of the good employee.

A big topic in recruitment when the buy-side had a tougher time not so very long ago was about how to tap into the passive market - many of whom have their resumes posted but are number 37,000 on the list because they don't go and update the record.  Now we're talking about firing people for what may well be passive behavior.