As it might have come into your knowledge we have received a formal complaint from our most valued customer regarding and accident caused at his house during the recent spraying of pesticide done by our company. He claims that our workers were negligent and did not cover the pond in his yard before spraying which is usually the normal practice and it resulted in killing of his prized fishes worth about 2000$. He not only has terminated his contract with the company but is also claiming the financial loss and in case of nonpayment is threatening to sue the company. Furthermore, he is publicly maligning the name of the company on company blog.
In this particular case, I have been notified that the workers sent to the Stewart House were both new and inexperienced. Regarding the on job training of new hires the company policy states that (p.12, paragraph C)
“When and if new hire is to be trained on the job, an experienced and well versed with the company policies and procedures employee will at all time accompany the new hire on the task.”
Furthermore the definition of an inexperienced and new employ is described as (p.7, paragraph A)
“Any employee that is with the company for less than three months and hasn’t been to at least 15 on site jobs of different nature are hereby considered as inexperienced and shall always be accompanied by an experienced employee on all site jobs.”
Way Forward
We have to work in coordination to tackle this public relations crisis and avoid lawsuit. At this point in time, I don’t have a complete picture of work assignments and their schedules. You are requested to a meeting with me and our attorney in my office on Monday at 10 AM to discuss what really happened and how we have to take this matter further with Mr. Stewart. We need to look for a way to minimize company liability in this matter and ensure that the damage to our company reputation is recovered, therefore, kindly prepare your explanation and rationale behind sending two inexperienced employees to Stewart House.
In order ensure that the claims by Mr. Stewart are nullified and the company name is not maligned we will need to be meticulous with our processes and find the mistake that caused the loss. As this matter is directly causing the company public defamation we need to be quick and thorough and neutralize the damage as much as possible.
Attachments: Copy Mr. Stewart formal complaint, excerpt from the Company Policy regarding the training of new hires
