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Employee Relations

Timely documentation: Your best legal defense

07/18/2019
What’s the best thing employers can do to win more lawsuits? Document every workplace decision contemporaneously, at the time you make it.

Focus reviews on performance, not emotions

07/09/2019
When you evaluate an employee who isn’t living up to performance expectations, avoid commenting on her emotional state. Focus on objective criteria like unmet goals or sales quotas. Otherwise, you risk a lawsuit claiming discrimination on the basis of disability.

Staff playing hooky to visit legal bookie? BET on it!

07/02/2019
Illinois and the District of Columbia are about to join seven other jurisdictions that allow legal betting on sporting events. Employers there are bracing for the possibility that wagers could get in the way of work.

Same broken rule, different discipline: Show why you punished one more harshly

06/28/2019
Courts like to see employers equally treat workers who break the same rules. That doesn’t mean employers have no wiggle room. The key is to document why one worker deserves a different punishment than another for breaking the same rule.

How to document employee infractions: 4 ‘musts’ to include

06/27/2019
In his recent Business Management Daily webinar, Documenting Employee Performance, author and HR executive Paul Falcone explained how much (and what kind) of details should be included when documenting employee performance and behavior problems.

Snapshot: Inconsistent sleep habits affect productivity

06/25/2019
Workers who consistently go to bed and wake up at about the same time say they are significantly more productive than those whose sleep schedules vary.

Choosing the right words: What to say when …

06/24/2019
Three tricky communication scenarios, and many solutions for them.

Head off a lawsuit with an apology?

06/19/2019
Some attorneys now advocate that an often-overlooked option of simply saying “I’m sorry” in certain situations may actually soothe feelings, and even defuse legal action.

What should we do? Two no-show/no-call situations were treated differently

06/11/2019
Q. We have a strict rule against not calling in before a missed shift to report an absence. We require workers to make that call at least one hour before the shift is to start, unless they cannot do so due to an emergency. Otherwise we mark the absence as unexcused. Recently, an employee went to the emergency room and couldn’t make the call because she could not get cell service where she was and was undergoing triage treatment. We didn’t hold her to the rule. Now another employee, who heard from the first employee that she was excused, is complaining she’s being treated unfairly, but her situation was not the same. What do we do?

Flight attendants say JetBlue failed to investigate rape

05/23/2019
Two female JetBlue flight attendants allege they were drugged and one was raped by two JetBlue pilots during a layover in Puerto Rico. They reported the incident to JetBlue, but have now filed a lawsuit alleging the airline did not investigate their allegations.