Job offer & strange employee handbook

[bonnefemme]

I have a job offer for a senior management position. This is relevant: it's for hybrid position with 2 days in the office position with a clear desk policy. HR has sent me the contract and employee handbook. There are a few clauses there which I have not seen before.

How would you feel about this clause?

"Personal searches
The Company may reasonably request to search your clothing, personal baggage, personal storage areas or vehicles. An authorised person must conduct any such search in the presence of an independent witness. Should you refuse such a request, the Company will require the appropriate authorities to conduct the search on behalf of the Company. Failure
to co-operate with the Company in this respect may be treated as gross misconduct."

Perfectly normal in all the jobs I've worked in.

I've seen similar. Is it a job that requires security clearance?

Fuck to that.

They've obviously had a problem before so are covering themselves
I wouldn't have a problem with it

Sounds fine to me, if you're concerned I'm sure they have a policy on what constitutes as reasonable and they will have specific rules for who counts as authorised to conduct them. I'd be surprised if a business didn't have something to be honest.

Very normal in retail, they don't trust you.

Wouldn't bother me too much if relevant to the job, e.g if I worked in pharmaceuticals or a bank. Wouldn't be happy if it seemed unnecessary.

We have that where I work, has been implemented since I started but I was surprised it wasn't in place already.
It's certainly common in retail and wholesale (where I am) because the temptation for employees to take stock is too high.
Not sure why this would be an issue for anyone not intending to steal - it's not a cavity search!

Is the employer an entity in retail or somewhere else where there are products/parts/packages employees can steal? Not something I'd get worked up about either way, but this would be very normal for (eg) a big retail company where employee theft (usually not at the senior management level) is an issue. The handbook probably just doesn't (likely intentionally) distinguish between people in the warehouse/shop and people in head office.

I've seen it in different jobs. Regularly searched in warehouses (as in every 10th person daily), supermarket only allowed transparent bags on shop floor, construction site carried out random checks, same for factory

Is it to prevent employees stealing from the company? It would depend on the context really. What sort of business is it? For example if you work somewhere that handles high end trainers or drugs for example, it seems reasonable.

I think I’ve seen similar. Does the company sell or manufacture something?

I would assume the reference to “appropriate authorities” carrying out a search in the event that you didn’t allow your employer to carry out a search means there is some sort of regulatory compliance that’s driving this?

Sorry, I'm drip feeding.

It's not retail and there are no goods that anyone could steal. It's an office job in a tech company. Laptops are valuable.

I'm neurodivergent, not sure if relevant. I cannot stand the thought of anyone touching my things. I'm not a thief though.

if its a tech company it could be to make sure that you arent putting confidential info onto a usb stick and taking out the building?

They'll be worried about IP and confidential information, not laptops. I bet this clause is never used, but they want to have the option in case they suspect anything. And I can tell you people steal stuff like that all the time.

YY to those saying confidential information - I work in law and I have that in my contract. I’ve only ever known it to be used once and in that scenario the person in question was misusing data and so it was entirely appropriate for their belongings to be searched. It wouldn’t worry me unduly.

Thank you all. I won't bring it up with HR then. I genuinely never saw this before.

If you've never seen it before you were absolutely right to ask about it @bonnefemme
And good luck in your new job

Normal in tech if you have proprietary software or hardware. Industrial espionage is huge. The biggest tech cos employ teams of internal security experts.

Normal in some jobs. Just don’t take anything in with you except keys/phone/food.

They have a random bag search policy in my office but I have never seen it carried out. We mostly work remotely so have to bring laptops and other equipment in and out of the office. I have no idea how security would be able to tell if we were stealing something versus taking it home for genuine work reasons.

Normal policy and I've had it in every office job I've worked in. I'm only aware of it being carried out once when the paranoid MD demanded a search of every employee's desk drawers in search of a missing document. Never known anyone to actually have their personal property searched though.

It’s way more likely to be intellectual property. They want to be able to check to see if you are taking company documents home - even stuff you’ve produced, without authorisation.
a lot of people when leaving a company try to take all documents they’ve created or work they’ve done with them. A lot of time it’s for posterity or memories and nothing dodgy as such. But, it has become an increasing problem with their next company asking stuff like “how did you do this in previous company” and low and behold you can provide a bunch of stuff that will help that new company.

out company got very hot on this. Clear desk, no hard copies to leave site ever, no downloading to a usb or hard drive (and had ways of detecting this). The bag check had been in place for years to protect against stuff like product we made going missing, but even light fingered stationary acquisition, but it came properly into force once the intellectual property stuff kicked off

why did IP kick off? We were a global company and expanded offices into countries who view stuff like IP in a very different way instinctively. Different countries think your thoughts and work are your property irrespective if someone has paid you for them already and in effect bought them. They had some events that lists them literally millions of dollars in China and in India. They completely beafed up policies, and began spot random searches in all sites around the world. They made it clear they were doing this. And did it at all sites so as not to discriminate against certain cultures and countires

every company I’ve ever worked in has this policy of searches .