Exempt - Winter 2008 - (Page 16)

RISK MANAGEMENT Liar, Liar Pants On Fire BY MARK HRYWNA BY MARK HRYWNA Dealing with a truth-challenged employee C onfronted by his boss about an affair with the cleaning lady in his office, Seinfeld character George Costanza asks: “Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I ﬁrst started here that that sort of thing is frowned upon ” That might be from an old Seinfeld episode, but any human resources director probably has more than a few good stories. Some could ask, is it necessary to have a written policy about not sleeping with the cleaning lady? Well, maybe you don’t have to go that far, but it’s important to put in writing and communicate to employees what’s expected of them, even if it might seem obvious at times. As a child, most of us are told not to lie -among other things -- but it still happens, and more often than you think. For instance, while only 8 percent of employees admit to stretching the truth on their résumés almost half of hiring managers have reported catching a candidate lying on their résumé, according to job Web site CareerBuilder.com. Melanie Lockwood Herman, executive director of the Nonproﬁt Risk Management Center in Washington, D.C., advises all members that everything on a candidate’s résumé might not be true. That’s one reason why the center endorses an application process, in which candidates respond to speciﬁc questions, rather than just presenting an open-ended résumé. “It’s very interesting about why people tell lies and the motivations behind it,” 16 | Exempt | Winter 2008 http://www.CareerBuilder.com

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Exempt - Winter 2008

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