Employee Relations

Step by step: Becoming a great manager, the Google way

01/25/2012

Google, the king of search engines, recently set out on a search of its own—to identify the qualities that make the highest quality managers at Google Inc., and then to replicate those qualities across the entire company. The end result: a simple, yet elegant, list of eight management practices that the best Google managers consistently do.

What’s your organization’s (official or unofficial) dress code?

01/24/2012

Bad news for Brooks Brothers and Ann Taylor: Traditional business attire takes a back seat these days.

It’s OK to discipline employees for stonewalling HR investigations

01/24/2012

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

How to become a great manager, the Google way

01/23/2012

Nontraditional benefits set ‘best and brightest’ apart

01/23/2012

Health insurance and flextime aren’t the only perks employees consider benefits. Most of the companies that won “Best and Brightest” awards from the National Association for Business Resources earned accolades from their employees for these offerings:

How to help employees understand the value of their benefits

01/17/2012

Boosting your benefits communication during lean economic times can help your organization retain good employees and ease their worries so they can focus on work. The key: Show employees the value of their benefits.

Red-handed? What to do when you suspect employee is a thief

01/17/2012

Few HR dilemmas are as sticky as dealing with an employee accused of stealing from the company. Here’s how to handle the situation with care, making sure your organization doesn’t overstep its bounds and expose itself to liability.

Be prepared to answer the question: Are you biased, or is employee overly sensitive?

01/16/2012

Every once in a while, you’ll run across an employee who is hypersensitive to any criticism. She may even attribute it to bias against a protected status, and may file an EEOC complaint. Rest assured that if you investigated and took her complaint seriously, the EEOC complaint will likely be dismissed.

‘Garage-sale overdose’ and 12 other outrageous reasons for missing work

01/10/2012

Have you seen a lot more empty seats around the workplace these days? When asked to share the most unusual excuses their employees have given for missing work, employers offered the following real-life examples …

Special performance measures deviate from usual practice? Be sure to document reason

01/09/2012

Courts don’t want to second-guess employers unless they feel they have no alternative. When an employee charges discrimination based on different treatment because he belongs to a protected class, the court first looks at the employer’s rules and tries to see if they have been enforced consistently.