How do you handle staff leaking confidential info?

[Cedric]

Trust – one of the cornerstones of any successful team, especially in community management. We all have our secret chambers, our hidden forums or ‘Staff Rooms’, where we discuss the behind-the-scenes, plan out strategies, and sometimes share confidential or sensitive information, right? But what happens when that trust is breached?

How do you handle situations where a staff member, who’s earned your trust over time, starts leaking confidential information discussed in hidden forums?

1. Immediate Actions: Once a breach is detected, what are your first steps to mitigate the potential damage?
2. Conversations and Consequences: How do you approach the conversation with the staff member in question? Is there a path to redemption, or is it a straight ticket out?
3. Preventive Measures: After such an incident, do you implement any new measures or policies to prevent such breaches in the future?
4. Emotional Toll: How does dealing with these situations affect you on a personal level? Is it a learning curve or a punch in the gut?
5. Member Relations: How do you address such breaches with your community, if at all? Does transparency trump keeping internal issues, well, internal?

I’m sure many of us have faced, or at least feared, situations like these, and it’d be really enlightening to understand different perspectives and approaches. Whether it’s a lesson learned, a policy adjusted, or a story shared, every bit of insight is valuable.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and learning from your experiences!

 

[Ravenfreak]

If I had any staff members leaking confidential information out of the staff lounge, I'd most likely demote them as soon as possible since I could trust them anymore. If posts are in the staff lounge, they're not meant to be leaked to the public. I'd be quite upset because I trust my staff and it would be devastating if they broke my trust. I thankfully never had to experience this before and I hope I never do.

 

[Tyrsson]

I can only answer in respect to being previous or a current team member for software projects. It should not happen period. When it does I have found that "most" of the time there may have been a misunderstanding in regards to what was privileged information and what was not.

However, If there is zero possibility of that being the case..... Remove them from the team. Period. Why? Because if that is the case then they leaked it intentionally and that is not an option. Period.

In case you didn't catch it the first time...

Period.

 

[Empire]

Open a court date and charge them ;P

 

[Shortie]

One thing I am completely against and I also stick to this myself even when I am staff or no longer staff on forums is keeping things in the staff forums confidential.

I am a firm believer that if you are staff on a site and you have access to the staff section where ideas and anything else of relevance is reported, it should be kept within the staff section and not made gossip with friends, family or other members of forums.

 

[Paul]

Has happened. Took care of it. No time for snakes.