Pine I agree with Risker that it would be improper to select candidates on the basis of their own personal political views. But I do agree with your point that expertise in the field of party-political camapigning would not be an appropriate criterion for the post of CCO.
"Rogol" On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 5:45 AM, Pine W <[email protected]> wrote: > Risker, > > > Your point #1, with respect to improving internal communication, is > > primarily handled by other departments within the WMF (Learning, Human > > Resources), with Communications as a resource rather than the primary > > messager. > > If WMF wants to have a different department lead efforts on internal > communication (my impression is that currently no one is actually leading > efforts in a holistic way) that would be OK with me. My impression is that > as WMF is already strong on external communication, and I think that WMF > should hire for what it needs rather than what it already has. If WMF would > like to have someone outside of the Communications Department take the lead > role -- and actually does assign somebody with relevant experience to work > on this as one of their primary responsibilities -- then perhaps hiring an > external communications expert into the chief communications officer role > would still be OK. > > > Your point #2 is pretty much irrelevant; some of the best > > communications leaders work for political campaigns, and they're usually > > "hired guns" rather than true believers. > There are a few exceptions, but > > again, it's irrelevant, and not ethical to screen directly for political > > affiliation - and possibly illegal to do so. > > Hmm. I don't know what percentage of political campaign communications > leaders are "hired guns", but I'm not sure that this is a risk that I would > want to take. That said, I hadn't considered your point that screening out > candidates with work histories in politics might be considered an illegal > practice; thanks for bringing that up. I'll defer to WMF HR and WMF Legal > on that. I wonder whether screening out all paid jobs for political parties > or campaigns (regardless of which affiliation or campaign was involved) > would trigger the same kind of legal scrutiny as screening out one party or > another (which I'm fairly certain would be a violation of U.S. employment > laws). Perhaps this could get into such complicated legal territory and > provide enough opportunities for lawsuits that it would be best to do as > you suggest rather than risk lengthy and expensive litigation. I disagree > that this issue is "irrelevant", but thanks for pointing out that this kind > of screening may have its own kind of risks which I hadn't considered. > > Pine > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
