HR Management & Compliance

Jerks at Work II—Don’t Tolerate Them

Yesterday’s Advisor featured Janove’s “jerks at work” tips. Today, more on managing jerks, and an introduction to a training program that might just stop your jerks in their tracks.

Some of the trickiest territory for supervisors is dealing with whistleblower jerks and jerks with disabilities, says attorney Jathan Janove. He offered a few cases where the jerks lost.

Janove is a partner in the Portland, Oregon, office of Ater Wynne LLP. His suggestions came at the recent SHRM annual conference in Chicago.

The Whistleblower Jerk

This case concerned a nuclear power plant inspector whose job was to point out safety violations. However, he had a certain “f-this,” “bleep bleep,” poking-in-the-chest style about him. He was fired, and he sued as a protected whistleblower, but the court upheld the firing on the grounds that his behavior was so far over the top that it need not be tolerated.

In another case, a worker filed a grievance. She didn’t like the way she was responded to, so she filed again. The more she felt ignored, the more she filed, and the harsher her tone became.

In fact, more than a dozen grievances were filed that were consistently hostile and inflammatory. Her manager told her that she was spending so much time writing grievances that she was not getting enough work done.

She responded with another grievance. Enough already, the company said, and fired her. The court upheld the employer. Even if it was protected activity, even if she believed she was right, there was just too much disruption.


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Jerks with Disabilities

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) says that an employee may be disciplined for violating a workplace conduct standard even if resulting from a disability, provided the standard is job-related for the position and consistent with business necessity.

The EEOC understands this is tricky territory so it gives two examples. A librarian has a disability that causes her to be mean, rude, and obnoxious. She screams at patrons—”This book is 5 days late!” Her termination would be considered OK because the behavior involved was job-related and consistent with business necessity.

However, says the EEOC, take a similar situation except it’s a warehouse worker with a disability who was surly, unkempt, rude, and had a bad attitude. EEOC says that doesn’t meet the test—that employer would have to put up with the behavior.

The Good News

Finally, Janove says, here’s one piece of good news concerning jerks—nobody likes them, including judges and juries. And jerks can’t stop being jerks. Final word—don’t tolerate ’em, says Janove.

When supervisors are new to the job, they don’t know how to handle jerks (or hiring, firing, managing FMLA, or accommodating a disability, for that matter).

It’s not their fault—you didn’t hire them for their HR knowledge—and you can’t expect them to act appropriately right out of the box. But you can train them to do it.


Train your line managers with BLR’s 10-Minute HR Trainer. There won’t be time for classroom boredom. Try it free. Read more


To train supervisors and managers effectively, you need a program that’s easy for you to deliver and that requires little time out of busy schedules. Also, if you’re like most companies in these tight budget days, you need a program that’s reasonable in cost.

We asked our editors what they recommend for training supervisors in a minimum amount of time with maximum effect. They came back with BLR’s unique 10-Minute HR Trainer.

As its name implies, it trains managers and supervisors in critical HR skills in as little as 10 minutes for each topic. 10-Minute HR Trainer offers these features:

  • Trains in 50 key HR topics, including manager and supervisor responsibilities under all major employment laws and how to legally carry out managerial actions from hiring to termination. See a complete list of topics, below.
  • Uses the same teaching sequence master teachers use. Every training unit includes an overview, bullet points on key lessons, a quiz, and a handout to reinforce the lesson later.
  • Completely prewritten and self-contained. Each unit comes as a set of reproducible documents. Just make copies or turn them into overheads, and you’re done. Take a look at a sample lesson.
  • Updated continually. As laws change, your training needs do as well. 10-Minute HR Trainer provides new lessons and updated information every 90 days, along with a monthly Training Forum newsletter, for as long as you are in the program.
  • Works fast. Each session is so focused that there’s not a second’s waste of time. Your managers are in and out almost before they can look at the clock. Yet they remember small details even months later.

Evaluate It at No Cost for 30 Days

We’ve arranged to make 10-Minute HR Trainer available to our readers for a 30-day, in-office, no-cost trial. Review it at your own pace and try some lessons with your colleagues. If it’s not for you, return it at our expense. Go here and we’ll set things up.

Download list of training topics
Download sample lesson

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