• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Employee Relations

Apply dress code evenly among sexes, within reason

08/01/2005

Q. Our company manufactures plastic tubing. Our general manager is requesting that men not wear sleeveless or tank-top shirts, due to sweat and appearance. He said women can wear them as long as their shirts are seamed. Is this legal? —C.M., Texas

Perk up dull HR memos by spelling out personal benefit

08/01/2005
Believe it or not, your ho-hum HR memos, if written in the right way, can serve as a retention vehicle, says Margaret Morford, president of consulting firm theHRedge. One employer customized …

Courts look at how you train, not just if

08/01/2005
Hopefully, reading about multimillion-dollar lawsuit verdicts has motivated you to implement anti-harassment and discrimination employee training. But how good is the training you’re giving? It’s a question worth asking.
Reason: …

Shape your in-house image by creating an HR ‘brand’

08/01/2005
Issue: Take control of your department’s image by creating a consistent internal marketing message.
Benefit: When done well, such branding raises your profile with execs and the rank and file, …

Don’t let e-mail mistakes kill your attorney/client privilege

08/01/2005
Issue: Protect your right to keep communications between the organization and its attorney secret.
Risk: By misdirecting e-mail messages meant for your attorney, you can wipe out that attorney/client privilege. …

Warn travelers to look for hotel-bill mistakes

08/01/2005
A remarkable 11.6 percent of hotel invoices include billing mistakes, resulting in U.S. travelers’ overpaying for rooms by a half-billion dollars each year, according to Wichita-based Corporate Lodging Consultants. On average, …

Calling in ‘sick’ won’t trigger FMLA; employee must give details

08/01/2005
What do you do with employees who call in sick with vague excuses, aches and pains and other less-than-convincing reasons? Can you discipline those people for unexcused absences without fearing that …

Dangerous and Disabled: ADA’s ‘Direct Threat’ Rule

08/01/2005

Q. One of our employees, who has diabetes, is on the road a lot tending to patients in their homes. We’ve heard that she is having trouble seeing patient charts and difficulty pricking patients’ fingers for tests. What should we do? —M.J., New Jersey

No-Cost Employee Benefit: Payroll-Deducted PCs

07/01/2005

Looking to offer employees a feel-good perk that doesn’t cost you anything? Set up a program that lets employees buy home personal computers through payroll deduction …

When an employee loses control at work

07/01/2005
Tempers flare all the time in the workplace, and managers need to know how to quickly calm down employees whose anger gets out of hand. Here’s a step-by-step strategy you can use: