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Employee Relations

Office romance: Don’t ban it; manage it

02/15/2011

Valentine’s Day may have come and gone, but love might still linger in the air at your workplace. If so, watch out! When office romances sour, scorned lovers often turn to the courts to allege that a former lover was a sexual harasser. Here are three tips to help make sure Cupid’s arrow doesn’t harm your organization.

The key is consistency: Make sure similar infractions are subject to similar punishment

02/15/2011

Employees who break rules usually expect to be punished. But they also expect to be treated fairly. Most understand that employers shouldn’t punish one employee more harshly than someone else who committed the same infraction. And if that other employee belongs to a different protected class, savvy employees know that attorneys will be lining up for a chance to file a discrimination lawsuit.

How can I discipline exempt staff for poor work?

02/15/2011
Q. After the holidays, our hourly employees returned to pre-holiday productivity. But our exempt employees didn’t. What can I do since their salaries aren’t dependent on how many hours they work?

The 6 biggest retention mistakes … and how to fix them

02/14/2011
With unemployment still floating above 9%, it’s a bit easier to find good employees. But keeping the best people never has been and never will be easy. What can you do to keep them around? A recent Harvard Business Review pointed to these key retention mistakes and solutions to fix them:

Log customer complaints to back up discipline

02/11/2011

Customers may not always be right, but employers can’t ignore their reasonable and lawful complaints. Remember, you need to document those complaints at the time they happen—especially if it seems like a customer complaint might lead to employee discipline.

Document efforts to help employee improve

02/11/2011
Nothing makes an employer look better in court than clear proof that it tried to help a struggling employee improve her performance. That’s why you should keep track of those efforts.

Offer reasonable ADA accommodations–but you don’t have to provide full-time helper

02/11/2011

It can be devastating when an employee becomes severely disabled in the prime of life, especially if it’s clear the disability means she will never be able to perform her old job without substantial assistance. Well-intentioned, compassionate employers try their best to help. But the tough question is how far they should go to accommodate the disabled employee’s restrictions.

Prep for firing with honest investigation

02/11/2011

Courts don’t like it when employees are treated unfairly. On the other hand, judges don’t want to serve as HR courts, either. That’s why they generally defer to management decisions that seem fair and honest. Judges prefer it when employers investigate allegations of employee wrongdoing before they fire someone—but they don’t require that the investigation be perfect.

Would you rather be at work or at home?

02/11/2011
One in six adults say they’d rather be working than be at home, according to a new CareerBuilder survey of 3,100 employees.

Put a stop to harassment ASAP–fast action now prevents liability even years later

02/10/2011
Sexual harassment sometimes grows slowly, starting out fairly innocuously before accelerating to behavior that creates a truly hostile work environment. Courts understand that and have created a specific legal doctrine to help harassed employees—the continuing violation doctrine.