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Employment Law

You can add new rule during medical leave

11/05/2010
It’s OK to change work rules while an employee is out on FMLA or other medical leave. It’s legal, as long as the rule applies equally to every similarly situated employee.

New hire a dud? Have hiring manager fire

11/05/2010
Here’s a practice you should make standard operating procedure: Have the same manager who makes hiring decisions also make the firing decisions. Doing so will cut the chances of a successful discrimination lawsuit.

Must we accommodate a ‘breathing machine’?

11/04/2010
Q. We provide janitorial services to local companies. We just learned that one of our employees is asthmatic. She missed several days because of her asthma. Now she wants to return, but she needs to keep a breathing machine with her. What can we do? We aren’t sure our customers will accommodate that need.

New employee a dud? Give the early hook without heading to court

11/02/2010

Sometimes it’s obvious from the get-go that a new hire just isn’t working out. You must dismiss him, the sooner the better. When the employee is a member of a protected class, who does the firing can make all the difference between a clean break and a messy discrimination lawsuit.

Worker in car accident during break: Are you liable?

11/02/2010
Q. Our company lets employees take two 15-minute paid breaks during their eight-hour shifts. One employee usually leaves the premises during her break and drives to a convenience store. If she were involved in a car accident on the way, would the company have any liability since she is still on the clock?

What’s the Texas law on voting leave?

11/01/2010
Q. We have had a hard time determining whether we must allow employees to miss work so they can vote? So this isn’t a problem in 2012, what rules must we follow?

Establish clear performance expectations so courts can judge if employee was meeting them

11/01/2010

Courts often hesitate to second-guess employers when they fire employees for what seem like honest reasons. And employers that set out clear performance expectations and then show how the terminated employee fell short rarely lose a lawsuit. That’s because, absent smoking-gun evidence of discrimination, fired employees have to prove they were meeting their employer’s legitimate expectations.

4 phrases that can sabotage job reviews

11/01/2010

When supervisors talk with employees about job performance, they must beware using common phrases that can unintentionally communicate the wrong message, or come across as too negative … or even legally dangerous. Feel free to share this “Memo to Managers” article with everyone in your organization who conducts performance reviews. Bonus: They’ll also learn the two phrases virtually guaranteed to spark a lawsuit.

What kind of information are we required to give participants in our health insurance plan?

11/01/2010
Q. We just received a letter from an employee who has requested a copy of our medical plan. Are we required to provide this information to her?

How responsible is a parent company for an action filed against a subsidiary company?

11/01/2010
Q. A former employee has filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against one of my company’s subsidiaries. The suit names both the subsidiary and us—the parent company—as the responsible employers. Isn’t this charge just the subsidiary’s problem and not ours?