The Situation Room: Sensitive Material Mishandling

Sean holds an important position in a your very busy office. He supervises a staff of approximately 30 employees who do a variety of things including some frontline service, phone support, records management, and others. Your office works with sensitive data that needs to be protected for legal compliance, and a smooth workflow between employees makes it all possible.  Making sure work gets done efficiently and records make it to their destinations is a key of the department, and thus everyone’s jobs.

As the department manager Sean wears several hats and has a difficult job. He manages vendor relationships and works with senior management, however a good amount of his day to day work is in coordinating the overall workflow of the office. He’s often called in to help with projects or to answer compliance questions – sensitive documents leaving the office need his signature.

Recently you have noticed unusual bottlenecking in this department, and you spoke with Sean about it to see if there was anything specific causing the problems. He mentioned that a few newer employees weren’t up to speed but that he was “working on it”. Several weeks passed and the situation worsened. In passing you ask one of the newer employees how the training was going and to your surprise they tell you that they have yet to begin, and that Sean hasn’t scheduled anything to date. She then apologizes for an incident that happened the previous week where she had gotten a folder back from Sean and handed it to a client only to find later that day that it contained the confidential information of another client. They were trying to get the folder back but the unintended recipient had yet to return it six days later. This is a potentially serious infraction, and required your direct attention and some documentation immediately.  It was the first you had heard of it.  

You make your way to Sean’s desk, and can tell by the look on his face that he knows why you are coming. When you inquire as to why you were not informed immediately of the error Sean tells you that he didn’t want the employee to get reprimanded for what amounted to his mistake. In regards to getting the files back he also tells you in a way that reminds you of your previous conversation regarding training that he is “working on it”. Sean has never had an issue regarding his work before.

What is your next step?