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Employee Relations

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:

Keep staff vacation schedules away from public view

07/01/2005
With summer-vacation season here, you may be tracking employees’ comings and goings using schedules posted on a bulletin board or online. But not everyone thinks so highly of publicly posted …

Confront the ‘subtle snubs’ that can sap your morale

07/01/2005
Issue: Most people remain silent in the face of minor disrespectful incidents at work.
Risk: Your silence can be interpreted as acceptance of the other person’s behavior, leading to major …