To be honest when giving a reference?

[ToffeeSauce]

A woman in my team is leaving to go a rival business. When she handed in her notice I was pleased, as her performance had been pretty dreadful for a long time - slapdash and chaotic work, refusal to take responsibility for her area, lack of focus etc. She's very sweet though, and a nice person to have around the place. However, the area she covers in my team is too important for this to continue, so I had begun a formal disciplinary process with her, all agreed with by my boss and HR. Obviously not pleasant, hence why I was relieved when she resigned.

I've now been sent a reference request from her new employer, and it's much more detailed than I would have expected. It doesn't ask for me to 'write' anything, which I could have fudged a bit, but instead to give specific ratings for her performance in various areas, and asks the direct question: Would you hire this person again?

The truthful answer is obviously 'No', but I'm not sure what to do. I don't want to sabotage this woman's career (and in a self-interested way I very definitely want her to leave!) but I also don't want to lie. WWYD?

The imperiousness of feeling that you owe a duty of care to a business over an individual unemployed person's future capability to support them self, it's just awful.

What if that person is unemployed because they've made very serious mistakes or errors of judgement? If that caused the loss of major contracts, for example, that could lead to several people being left out of work.

Bardo Sauvignon was specifically referencing work with vulnerable people. I'm assuming the guidelines there are like the childcare ones - we can't just give someone a nice reference.

Ensuring that vulnerable people (including children) are properly cared for relies on the regulated employers in those fields giving proper references.

As well as references my current employer also asks prospective employees to complete a form stating whether they've been let go from a previous job through an agreement, whether they have a criminal record etc - some employers will avoid actually sacking someone by agreeing to provide a bland dates only reference as long as the person leaves without a fuss so clearly they've been caught out by that in the past.

The imperiousness of feeling that you owe a duty of care to a business over an individual unemployed person's future capability to support them self, it's just awful.

What fucking 'business'? I'm an NHS nurse. I'm not going to pretend that someone is not cruel or incompetent if they are, and I'm not going to lie and say they're crap if they're not.

It's imperative that every reference I write is truthful. Yes, I have very occasionally written poor ones but only for very poor candidates and with HR approval.

That's not going to change, I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience of bullying but that doesn't mean that all managers will be willing or capable of lying on references.

[Name] worked at [company] as a [role] from [date] to [date]. In this role, [name] worked on several software delivery projects for a number of [firm]'s client. He was responsible for mapping project stakeholders, gathering, analysing and structuring functional and non-functional requirements, managing them in [tool] and for writing functional software specifications.

We wish [name] all the best for his professional future

Kind regards,
B. Bitch
Senior Delivery Manager
[Firm]

He was a fucking disaster. This was as 'bad' as policy allowed me to go.

From what pps have said on here, I really can't get what the point is of providing references for future employers. If you can't answer honestly, surely in reality the reference isn't worth the paper it's written on??

In a lot of cases and a lot of industries they're probably not worth the paper they're written on Mittens1969. Probably more so if they're coming from a big company who isn't in a field with any specific disclosure requirements.

IME you tend to get more useful references from small companies (ones without HR functions!) but then they're probably more at risk of nasty spiteful referencing too.

Ensuring that vulnerable people (including children) are properly cared for relies on the regulated employers in those fields giving proper references

I work for a very large company in this field and the references we give and receive are dates, job title and reason for leaving, only.

If you can't answer honestly, surely in reality the reference isn't worth the paper it's written on??

A senior HR partner used those exact words about references in a people management training session I once attended.

Really madamarcati2? I'm in Scotland so possibly we have some different guidance but our most recent reference request guidance recommends some pretty thorough questions. Every employer we have asked (in the same field) has completed them and our employer guidance suggests that we should too.

The regulator also asks to see our recruitment processes and files when we're inspected, and we have also been advised that the regulator can ask to see the references we've provided.

My understanding was that full referencing like this was normal down south for schools and so on, but maybe not so much for other care fields.

And this is why references are so unreliable as a method of deciding on someone's suitability for a job!