Guidelines for Responding to
Employee-Reference Inquiries

The Maricopa County Community College District maintains a regular practice of delivering--upon request--reference information about current or previous employees to those employees' prospective employers. Reference information is a factual appraisal regarding an employee that is provided to an employer interested in hiring that person.

Typically, prospective employers are eager to get information they can about someone they are thinking of hiring. In the past, it was almost always advisable to decline a request for such information. But today, the law affords protection to current or previous supervisors who--in accordance with legal requirements--comply with such a request.

Fairness to Employees

To ensure fairness to employees and prevent claims that false or misleading information was offered, a supervisor who is asked to give reference information should follow these guidelines:

Reference information should concern only the employee's education, training, experience, qualifications, and job performance. If the requester asks for information that cannot be included in any of these five categories, it may not be disclosed.

Reference information must be factual. Reference information does not include commentary or subjective opinions that cannot be clearly supported by facts. A supervisor should decline to answer a question of whether he or she would hire the person again because such an inquiry does not call for a factual response.

Performance Appraisals

Moreover, assessments of any employee's job performance should be consistent with entries previously made in the employee's written performance appraisal contained in the personnel file.

It is always best to be cautious when discussing an employee's past performance. Unfortunately, a person who, for various reasons, wants to obtain information about an employee may choose to pose dishonestly as a prospective employer.

Since most requests for reference information come over the telephone, try to avoid responding immediately. Instead, ask to call the requester back, and make a note of the telephone number that is given.

After calling the requester, the supervisor should summarize in writing the reference information that was given, along with the name of the requester, the telephone number, the date of the conversation, and the name of the employee who is the subject of the request. A copy of the summary should then be sent to the Employee Services Department.

Keep in mind that reference information may ultimately be communicated to individuals other than the person who asks for it. Also, the person requesting reference information may be tape recording the conversation with a supervisor without the latter's knowledge. In any event, whatever is provided in response to a request for reference information may be circulated to many people (including the employee whom the supervisor has been asked to discuss).

Many employee policy manuals deem the contents of personnel files confidential. While this does not prevent a supervisor from giving appropriate reference information, copies of an employee's personnel file should not be provided to anyone outside the District.

While the Maricopa Community Colleges' practice calls for providing factual reference information, a supervisor is not required to answer every question posed by a prospective employer. If the request concerns something other than an employee's education, training, experience, qualifications, and job performance--or if the answer to a question is simply not known--the supervisor should decline to respond.

Although most requests for reference information are verbal, some call for written responses. Since Arizona law requires that a copy of any written reference information be provided to the employee, a copy of such a written response should be sent to the Employee Services Department, who will forward it to the employee.

Published in the Summer 1997 Edition of In Brief