Here's an easy way to learn whether an employer you're considering joining really values the people who work there, or whether they don't value them and only say they do. When you're on the phone with the recruiter or when you're meeting face-to-face with your prospective boss, ask this question:
Does your organization provide references for former employees, beyond just confirming their titles and employment dates?
It's a very simple question, and the answer is either "yes" or "no." If you're considering joining a new company, there's only one right answer. If you go to work for people who don't allow their department managers to give references for former employees -- and I'm talking about real, substantive references that might take fifteen or twenty minutes on the phone -- you can't expect to grow your flame.
They will have already told you everything you need to know about their regard for their team members. Employers who won't allow their managers to give references do not value talent, no matter how loudly they proclaim that they do.
If you hire managers, eventually you have to let them manage. If you don't give references for people who worked for your firm, then you're saying that your paranoid fear of a defamation charge trumps your ethics. Have you ever heard of a friend of yours, or anyone you know, suing their ex-employer for defamation because of a job reference? I don't do anything except HR, and I haven't run into one single case of that in thirty-plus years.
Can you imagine working for a company for five or ten years and then having your manager tell you upon your departure "I'm sorry, I won't be able to give you a reference, because our firm forbids it."? That's as low as you can get. Whoever is in charge of policy-making at the top of the organization would rather listen to employment attorneys than his or her own heart and mind.
Run away from a company that won't give references to its former team members. If they don't trust managers to get on the phone and talk to people, why are they still managers?
You can very easily train managers how to give references without sliming anyone. I have led training sessions on reference-giving many times. It's pretty simple. Any firm that makes the decision "Naw -- we don't have time to train our managers on reference-giving. We'll just eliminate reference-giving here instead, and let our HR people confirm former employees' titles and employment dates" is not a good place for you to work.
If you're an HR person and your company forbids managers from giving references, get that policy changed in 2015. It's beneath you, not to mention the wonderful people who work for you.
