mynd i ffwrdd "athro"
- 2012-05-07
My reply was based on Turnoi's rather erroneous claims about policy and legislation in the West. The thread has developed from there.
The policy of this school does not prevent you giving your opinions on them as you've justed proved. You had the choice to leave the school during the contract period and you choose to do so. You had the choice to post negatively about the school and again you decided to do so. What you need to realize is that there are consequences to any action you decide to take and for that matter for any action the school decides to take i.e. they employed you, you left and now you are criticizing them. Their response to the criticism may well be to not give the glowing reference that you desire. Cause and effect. Action and reaction
If the school is withholding things like a release letter (which is needed in China to change your residence permit to a different employer) then i suggest that in the first place you take this up with the relevant authorities rather than getting into a slanging match on a public forum which is unlikely to directly benefit you in the future - burning bridges and all that!
Sparrow
- 2012-05-06
Firstly, this is not the UK or Wales for that matter and thus those semantics do not apply. The fact still remains that this is a manipulative policy that does nothing more than protect the interests of the company by limiting what previous employees may decide to say about said company post completion of contract. There is no way to defend this policy as any employee is entitled to an assessment of their time at said company that is without bias or malicious orientation. Pity you stepped up, seems you've become K's whore too.
mynd i ffwrdd "athro"
- 2012-05-06
The approach you've described refers to an individual organizations policy as opposed to the law.
Where the data protection act in the UK is concerned, a company is not required to release information on an employee if that information is stating an 'opinion' as opposed to a 'fact' about said employee. The problem is it's very difficult to state concrete, objective facts about an individual without the threat that it could be seen as a subjective opinion. This explains why many UK based companies will not give particularly detailed references and can easily hide behind the data protection act should they wish to do so. In fact many medium to large UK based companies will only give references through the HR department (not your direct line manager) and will only state concrete facts e.g. the length of time you worked there and primary responsibilities.
It has been my experience that to get a full reference from a line manager in such an environment then you need to have a good working relationship with that manager. By giving you a reference, the manager would be putting their own neck on the line i.e. the former employee could take legal action against the referee if they stated in their reference an opinion of the employee that the employee felt had an adverse effect on them getting a new job. These kind of cases are not uncommon and again it explains why companies very often refuse to give anything but the bare minimum when providing a reference.
As 'been there done that' stated in his post, why should a manager/company go the extra mile for an employee that they did not have a good relationship with? If we believe what was written about the OP (sparrow) he signed a new contract, then promptly left 3 weeks into it! That's hardly going to endear yourself to your employers is it?