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

Discrimination / Harassment

Defuse bias suits by tracking which staff you discipline

03/01/2007

It’s a good idea to track the age, race, religion, sex or other characteristics of employees you discipline. Being able to see, at a glance, a potentially discriminatory pattern can help you make a midcourse correction …

Throwing the book at a worker: A good lawsuit defense

03/01/2007

When faced with an employee who has committed numerous rule violations, do you pick the most serious one and act on that? If so, you may want to rethink that strategy …

Reacting to harassment complaint: First-Day Action Is Vital

03/01/2007

If you don’t have an action plan in place for responding to sexual harassment complaints, develop one now. Don’t wait until the phone rings or an e-mail arrives detailing sexual wrongdoing. By then, it may be too late …

Deciding on promotion? Purge file of prior litigious actions

03/01/2007

When it’s time to decide on promotions, do you send employees’ personnel files over to a supervisor or hiring committee to help make the decisions? Make sure the files don’t contain references to past discrimination claims or investigations. Otherwise, you could be inviting a passed-over candidate to sue for retaliation …

Surprise, surprise: Employees at even smallest Georgia companies can file harassment lawsuits

03/01/2007

Conventional wisdom holds that if you have fewer than 15 employees, workers can’t sue you for sexual harassment in Georgia. Well, conventional wisdom is wrong …

HR director arrested for handing out Xanax at work

03/01/2007

Here’s a classic study of HR run amok: A bitter feud at the Brooksville Police Department has prompted the city manager to resign and led to the suspension of the police chief, a lieutenant and the HR director …

Chaos unleashed: Animal shelter staff howls about top dog’s behavior

03/01/2007

Fighting, horseplay, unreported accidents: You might expect those kinds of antics at the local animal shelter, but not from the staff  …

The gloves are off: Haitians win lawsuit against landscaping firm

03/01/2007

Dias Landscapes Corporation of Boynton Beach will pay $150,000 to settle an EEOC lawsuit over firing five Haitian employees and replacing them with Hispanic workers …

Understanding religious accommodations in Georgia workplaces

03/01/2007

Georgia mirrors America’s growing diversity in many ways. Today, mosques occupy old churches; many workers wear burqas and yarmulkes; and some employees request “prayer breaks.” Religious diversity is a reason for celebration, but it also presents challenges in the workplace …

More discrimination suits filed against Savannah police chief

03/01/2007

When it rains, it pours. Recently, 11 Los Angeles police officers filed discrimination and harassment suits against Savannah Police Chief Michael Berkow …