“I am racist, and I’ll say that to the whole entire world,” said former Cinnabon employee Crystal Wilsey, who also made obscene gestures and spouted racial epithets in a viral video.
Cinnabon rightly fired her. Her behavior was absolutely inappropriate. Cinnabon issued a statement:
We’ve seen the disturbing video from the Cinnabon bakery in Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin, and we do not condone this behavior. The former employee was immediately terminated by the franchise owner. Their actions do not reflect our values or the welcoming experience every guest deserves.
But could Cinnabon have done something to prevent it?
At the beginning of the video, you can hear the man asking, “Do you think sexualizing your body makes you a better person?” This is inappropriate customer behavior, and something the employee should not be subject to. Wilsey claimed this was not the first time they had harassed her. The evidence of that is somewhat thin, but additional video tends to support the contention this was not a one-time encounter.
To keep reading, click here: Cinnabon Fired an Employee for Racist Slurs in a Viral Video. There’s a Vital HR Lesson to Learn Here
It is about time that that adage–The Customer Is Always Right–be addressed for the limited success it makes for encouraging customers to buy, because it really has the negative effect of encouraging clientele to become abusive to your employees who have to face these people on a daily basis. Too many “customers” in today’s world consider your employees sub-humans and complain just to complain in the hopes of getting a bargain for their opinion behavior. Bad enough you have your employees on camera surveillance anyway, don’t belittle them even more when a customers shows you a video that could have been doctored
It is important to understand that an employee can both have acted inappropriately, thus deserving consequences for their actions and also have a company’s duty to prevent harassment that may hit the employee in a way that makes this behaviour happen in the first place.
Once a particular incident goes viral, the impact is irrevocable on both the brand and those participating in the incident. By implementing comprehensive training programs for employees, defining clear paths for escalating issues that arise related to repetitive customer mistreatment and then supporting employees effectively, HR should create mechanisms that help avoid “flashpoints.” The function of HR is not just to react quickly when these incidents occur but rather to aid in the creation of systems that will allow for the prevention of these types of behaviours from becoming edible events from the very beginning.