1. Just fire the shitty people. I don't know why companies don't do this more in the US - it's at-will, just fire them.
2. Why are you trying to stop your employees from organizing????
> “The onus is on the CEO,” Flory said. “Our focus has been on the values,”
Agreed on this last statement. Ultimately if Slack is becoming a toxic environment there are obviously other issues - employees being able to quickly communicate and organize is not one of them.
1. Our employees can't behave themselves 2. Our managers can't or won't do anything about it 3. Executives aren't willing to draw a line in the sand 4. I guess Slack is terrible?
Of course it does. It is just harder to audit and record. That's why they call it "high school like" behavior - you put a bunch of people in a room together every day and you get gossip.
In-person workplaces do not foster this usually, with some exceptions in immature start-ups or bro-y Wall Street.
By contrast, it’s exactly the kind of atmosphere that instant messaging environments foster.
His quality of work output is very high, his teammates rate him highly in reviews, he is kind & respectful in all other forms of communication like code reviews, team meetings, etc. It’s just 100% the instant gratification of a real time chat response in a debate thread that draws him to the problem zone.
Firing someone like this would be ridiculous. It would hurt team morale, lower productivity, sink costs into finding and training a backfill, and establish that we, as managers, would prefer to kick people and bark orders under the threat of dismissal than to be accepting of flaws and actually do the job of managing and help the person grow past this.
You said “just fire the shitty people” in response to a very low stakes topic like misbehavior on a chat program, and then vigorously added response comments all over defending the claim that any type of community gathering of coworkers begets this shitty behavior.
The most reasonable take possible on your initial comment is that you are suggesting a very extreme low bar for firing people rather than helping them improve.
I've asked this question of managers many times. The answer is usually some variation on "The shitty ones are the ones who know how to work the system to their advantage the best. They're the most likely to sue for wrongful termination and otherwise make my life hell if I fire them."
Anybody can do this, not just HR. If you have overwhelming evidence of job misconduct and provide it to your company, it gives them ammunition to defend themselves against those sorts of legal recourses.
The outcome you want is the shittiness to stop and you have an objective transcript of everything that happened in slack, so assuming the shittiness is real this isn't even remotely hard.
Option 1: If the behaviour isn't that bad or is in some sense borderline or open to interpretation, you speak to them in person, say the thing that happened that needs to stop, state clearly why it isn't in line with your values, is damaging to the team/whatever the problem is, and state your expectation that it will stop and if it doesn't immediately stop it will affect their future with the firm. You follow up with an email recapping all of the conversation (in particular the statement that if it happens again they're out) and copy HR. You need to do option 1 if you have been allowing this behaviour to slide in the past. It's important to do this with all parties who have been indulging in this behaviour and don't show any kind of favouritism.
Option 2: If it's not the first time (ie you've already done some version of option 1 and it hasn't stopped) or the behaviour is really egregious you book a 1:1 with the person and when they show up HR is there with you. You show them the thing on slack that is happening that isn't ok and any previous "option 1" recap emails. You ask them to explain any extenuating circumstances. You terminate them there and then unless they have a really compelling story. You send an email to the HR person thanking them for handling the situation (especially since the reason you got here is that you have made mistakes as a manager), summarising the conversation and your thought process that meant option 1 was not appropriate. If they've done this before you have the email track from when you did option 1 before to add to their evidence trail.
For at-will employees there's no way any kind of wrongful termination will stick if you follow this kind of fair and rigorous process, you document conversations you have had and your rationale for dismissal is reasonable. For employees in a European or UK employment context, you need to be more aware of the surrounding context and make sure they have actually breached your policies and then follow your disciplinary process appropriately. If you work with your HR colleagues this isn't hard.
[edit] There is also an "Option 0" above which is less heavy-handed. Part of being a good manager is knowing when to take the person out for a coffee, put a hand on their shoulder and just give them the "Come on you know this isn't ok" conversation. Then you follow up with an email (but don't copy HR) and make sure you save it in case you need to escalate further. Just make sure you don't option 0 your buddies and escalate everyone else because that is seriously bad.
You do not want your good employees to suffer at the hands of a bad employee. It might be difficult to do the right thing in these cases. I would try to focus on the people/products/customers you are helping and less on the negativity you are removing.
I have personally witnessed the consequences of toxicity spreading throughout a team. It is incredible how much productivity you lose and how much more stress you have in your life when everyone is salty all the time.