Blackrock tells staff they must reveal romances linked with anyone in company | Hacker News Reader

Blackrock tells staff they must reveal romances linked with anyone in company

businessinsider.com.au

7 pointsoars8 comments

This is ordinary in many organizations. They want to ensure there is no manager/report relationship that could ensnare the employee or the company.

> BlackRock’s human resources head, Jeffrey Smith, was fired in July 2019 for breaking company rules on disclosing relationships

I wonder who fired him

Slaves used to need permission from their masters before they could marry. Of course, Blackrock employees are far from slaves. But it's an unsettling policy nonetheless.

And this isn't about needing permission. Obviously they can't stop anyone. But they can make sure they're not directly working with someone that could lead to a conflict of interest.

I think the worst that would happen is that the customer gets reassigned to a different account manager.

You are right of course. They aren't literally saying that. However the United States has at will employment, which can reasonably be interpreted as that everything you do and they know about is with implicit permission from them. They also say in the statement they will be assigned different work. Which is commendable. I'm not sure whether that will be possible in all cases though.

Yes, it is a risk. But the fears of a conflict of interest are real. What's to stop you giving favourable treatment to the customer at a cost to your own company (though not to you personally)? In a case where reassignment isn't possible I'm not at all sure what the right answer is.

Can they legally enforce it?

What about true love instead of romance?

> Can they legally enforce it?

For Blackrock employees in the UK, probably. They could characterise failing to reveal such matters as gross misconduct (because of the perceived or actual conflict of interest) in their disciplinary policies and as long as everyone was adequately notified and they followed the correct process, an employment tribunal probably wouldn't find against them (depending on the facts).

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