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Employee Relations

Your detailed records: Keys to legal victory

12/02/2011

You never know which employee will file a discrimination lawsuit. These surprise lawsuits often allege that the employer disciplined ­others outside the employee’s protected class less severely for the same transgression. Protect your organization by providing detailed reasons for any discipline at the time it occurs.

Keep consistent records of all disciplinary actions

12/01/2011
You must track all disciplinary actions. That way, you can quickly determine whether your discipline has been equitable.

Court: Retirement isn’t constructive discharge

12/01/2011
Do you worry that encouraging someone to retire when he’s facing disciplinary action could backfire? Relax. In most circumstances, a voluntary retirement that isn’t pressured or forced because of a threat of imminent discharge isn’t considered a constructive discharge.

Log problems, improvement efforts before terminating

12/01/2011

Occasionally, you’ll run across an employee who has a hard time performing up to expectations and won’t accept suggestions to improve. If he belongs to a protected class, you may worry about a lawsuit if you terminate him. That shouldn’t be a problem if you take the time to document problems before termination.

Beware impromptu evaluations to decide RIFs

12/01/2011

If you must cut staff, you naturally want to terminate the least productive workers and keep the most productive ones. You could make the decision on the basis of past performance evaluations. But what if there aren’t any?

5 tips to cut flab from your business writing

12/01/2011

In business writing, you don’t receive extra credit for slathering your sentences with fancy phrases, the way you did in college. Do that in a memo or e-mail, and you can expect eyes to glaze over. Here are five “less is more” tips for writing more effectively at work.

Documentation is key to winning bias lawsuits–along with clear policies, thorough investigations

12/01/2011

When terminating several em­­ployees at the same time, make sure you have carefully documented the reasons. That’s especially important if the employees share common protected characteristics such as age. You want to be prepared for a lawsuit if they decide the real reason they lost their jobs was their protected characteristic.

Discipline OK for stonewalling investigation

12/01/2011

Sexual harassment allegations often come down to he said/she said arguments. Without hearing from both sides, there’s no way to figure out what happened. If one of the people involved in the allegations won’t talk, you can discipline him for refusing to co­­operate.

New hire running into trouble right away? Document problems early and often

11/25/2011

Once in a while, the honeymoon is barely over before a new em­­ployee starts to struggle. Since every job has a learning curve, you may hesitate to terminate right away. But you can’t ignore the problems, either.

Court: Don’t expect access to past job records

11/25/2011
When a former employee sues, alleging she was terminated because of sex discrimination, the employer often argues that the real reason was poor performance. Don’t expect the court to let you go on a fishing expedition into the employee’s past. As this recent case shows, courts think past performance is no indication of future results.