1. Honor the agreement, trusting that Winston's rehabilitation is complete on all levels and that he is now ready for a responsible position. Give him a good recommendation.
2. Contact the vice president of sales and ask him to release you from the agreement or to give the reference himself. After all, he's the one who made the agreement. You don't want to lie.
3. Without mentioning specifics, give Winston such an unenthusiastic reference that you hope the other HR director can read between the lines and believe that Winston will be a poor choice.
As director of HR, Tess Danville was asked to negotiate a severance deal with Terry Winston, the Midwest regional sales manager for Cyn-Com Systems. Winston's problems with drugs and alcohol had become severe enough to require his dismissal. His customers were devoted to him, but top management was reluctant to continue gambling on his reliability. Lives depended on his work as the salesperson and installer of Cyn-Com's respiratory diagnostic technology. Winston had been warned twice to clean up his act but had never succeeded. Only his unique blend of technical knowledge and highpowered sales ability had saved him before. Now the vice president of sales asked Danville to offer Winston the option of resigning rather than being fired if he would sign a noncompete agreement and agree to go into rehabilitation. Cyn-Com would also extend a guarantee of confidentiality on the abuse issue and a good work reference as thanks for the millions of dollars of business that Winston had brought to Cyn-Com. Winston agreed to take the deal. After his departure, several near-disasters that were the result of Winston's mismanagement were uncovered. Some of his maneuvers to cover up his mistakes bordered on fraud.