Liability Risk: HR Director Threatening Employee

First and foremost, the CLO needs to be involved along with an attorney who specializes in labor law. Their advice is supreme.

Second, you might want to engage a crisis trained Public Relations individual for both internal and external communications. This type of incident (real or imagined, doesn't really matter) can cause irreparable harm to the Company's reputation.

Thirdly, on advice of counsel, it may be in the best interests of all involved for the HR person to resign, admit no guilt, but state that their ability to function properly has been compromised or something to that effect.

Lastly, the CEO must make a simple but explicit statement that certain behaviors or alleged behaviors can not be condoned. Again, this statement should be made in consultation with both your lawyer and pr person.

- Will it eliminate a potential law suit - NO.
- Will it eliminate potentially bad press - No, but it will mitigate it (the faster everything occurs, the better)
- Will it solve your internal issues - very possibly.
- Will the CEO Statement solve this issue - yes, no and yes. Yes, if the perceived party has left the company, no -- because some will feel the HR person was railroaded and yes - by the public (if it comes to that) in the the company is decisive.

Things that you may want to ask/know to point you in the right direction ... (pre legal counsel and pre labor attorney). They are going to ask for/about these anyways.

1. What does the policy (Code of Conduct) say? Remember, you can not retroactively apply new policies (if ever). Are there conflict reporting and resolution portions? Were there steps that the terminated employee could have taken? Did the employee take it?
2. Is your HR Director an at-will employee?
3. Was there any other person in the company that talked to the terminated employee about this? Exit interview? You have to recognize that the wrongful termination and the threat with bodily harm are two different things. Maybe you can justify the termination, but you can't justify the threat. Also, one more thing that I remembered, firing the HR Director may be used against you and may be taken as admitting guilt.
4. How was our documentation of the things that happened?
5. Did the terminated employee sign any release forms?

And lastly....everything Wayne said.

There are more, but these are what's currently on my head right now.

I think you have already lost valuable time on protecting the company by not acting immediately to get your legal people involved especially outside counsel. There is nothing worse than denial by senior management that will somehow go away or that the CEO will not believe this because he is a trusted adviser. While it may not be true waiting to do something is inviting trouble. As Wayne indicated you need to move immediately - this is a crisis - and you need to act accordingly.

You have to consider the impact on the company in three ways. The terminated employee and any action he/she may bring, The HR director and the impact of terminating or not terminating him and to me the most important is the impact on the remaining 200 employees. This is a defining moment for the company in a lot of ways. You mentioned a few other examples where the HR director acted in ways that seem in appropriate. Maybe there is a lot more there than any of you know.

You have 200 people watching and judging how the CEO and senior management values employees. If you do it the wrong way can seriously damage the company. Although you are a private company I would not overlook Wayne's advice about bring in an outside firm to help you deal with this.