Discipline / Investigations

Ensure disciplinary documents contain enough detail to justify harsh punishment

11/30/2019

Details are especially important when different employees break similar rules and you punish some more harshly than others. You need to be able to show why you fired one employee while another whose misconduct was identical was allowed to keep his job.

Internal harassment complaints: Avoid these 5 mistakes

11/19/2019

Receiving an internal harassment complaint is a critical moment for an employer. How you handle the complaint can affect workplace morale, the likelihood of a lawsuit or an administrative charge and the defenses available to you as an employer, among other things.

Internal complaints not protected as ‘free speech’

11/18/2019

The Texas Constitution gives Texas public employees the right to free speech. Thus, a public employee who speaks out in public about a matter of public importance cannot be punished for doing so. However, that’s not true if the speech occurs at work.

Which word doesn’t belong when disciplining a pregnant employee? That’s right: pregnant!

11/18/2019

A little bit of caution goes a long way toward limiting charges of pregnancy-bias discrimination.

Suspect employee theft? Skip the lie-detector test

11/14/2019

Federal law says most employers cannot require employees to take polygraphs.

‘Interrogate’ without triggering legal liability

09/19/2019

Aggressively questioning an employee suspected of stealing from your workplace can be a flash point for a lawsuit. If you are part of the investigation, follow these guidelines when interviewing suspects.

Track every disciplinary action in detail

08/14/2019

Document all the details when you discipline or terminate. That way, you can review past discipline and compare it with currently proposed action. Similar conduct should result in similar punishment.

3 cardinal rules of documentation

08/09/2019

Strong documentation systems must be built on three basic principles.

It was just a meeting, not false imprisonment

08/02/2019

An employee whose supervisor ordered her to take a seat in a conference room has lost her request for a trial on charges of false imprisonment.

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

07/27/2019

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.