The recent expulsion of four critics of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) from an REC-run online forum has erupted into an upgraded war of words and rumblings of possible legal action.

Phil Harmsworth of the Manifesto for Progress group told Recruiter that they sought a public apology from REC chief executive Kevin Green for “potentially libellous” criticism of them in an 11 July article about their expulsion on recruiter.co.uk.

“That’s the first step,” Harmsworth said. He added that Manifesto members last week received an invitation from REC Council chairman Neil Smith to a “private and confidential” meeting. “It might be that we decline the meeting until [Kevin] Green apologises for his comments,” Harmsworth said. Smith could not be reached for comment.

The Manifesto group have repeatedly criticised Green and other REC officials in the REC’s Institute of Recruitment Professionals’ online forum for a catalogue of issues, from an alleged “lack of transparency” in the trade body’s operations to its retention of an external consultant for nearly three years. Most recently they questioned the appropriateness of arrangements for a presentation by Green at a client event held by Smith’s recruitment business, Kinetic.

Recruiter asked online reputation expert Paul Harrison of Carve Consulting to review the members’ expulsion from the online group. He said: “Many organisations have no idea about how to manage negative feedback and reviews but they’ve obviously got it wrong in this case or have been badly advised.

“For a trade/membership organisation, it’s particularly disappointing that they have no strategy in place.”
Harrison elaborated: “Structurally, organisations should always seek to create a dedicated community or channel for ’feedback/suggestions/ideas/what could we do better’ type comments. Failing to do so creates a vacuum that participants with a message to get across will exploit.

“In terms of managing this issue, banning members was clearly the wrong option, and with utterly predictable results. As hotel owners have learnt, the divine right to comment is the genie that can’t be put back in the bottle. The REC,” he continued, “as counter-intuitive as it might seem, should remember that they don’t own the community; the participants do.

“My advice would be to hand over the mic and start letting the community self-police: what do they want? From the comments, it would seem that the consensus is that the complaints were low in number, and that many feel the banning has been heavy-handed and smacked of censorship.

“So,” Harrison continued, “make an apology (publicly and privately), re-instate the members, then start asking the community to get involved. First up, ask them if they would like an ideas/right to reply group. With their mandate, direct all conversations to that group and then, of course, start listening.”

Asked to respond to criticism that he did not listen to complaints, Green outlined for Recruiter the array of options members have to raise issues. Specifically referring to the Manifesto group, he added: “When they’ve made sensible suggestions, we’ve acted on them.” As an example, he cited the group’s proposal that the REC should publish and circulate among all members the organisation’s half yearly accounts, which the organisation will do soon.