It used to be the “60 Minutes Rule,” but lawsuit avoidance expert Hunter Lott now encounters people who say 60 Minutes, what’s that? So he advocates the “YouTube Rule”—don’t do anything in the office, he says, that you wouldn’t want to see on YouTube.
Lott, who is a popular speaker and consultant and owner of PleaseSueMe.com, made his comments at the recent SHRM convention and exposition in Las Vegas.
Lott often tells the story of the manager who arrived home after a long day and his 10-year-old says, “Daddy lost it at the office today.” It was true—the person he’s been mad at had shot video of the exchange with her phone and posted it to YouTube!
HR has three pieces to its job, Lott says: the harmony part (morale, culture, conflict resolution), the productivity part (since the recession, getting at least 110 percent out of everyone), and the compliance part (not getting sued).
These days, the three have to work together, Lott says. He tells of a lawyer who represents employees who told him that employees don’t sue because of their legal rights, or because of money. They sue to get even. So treating people right is critical, and that means the three parts are equally at play for HR managers.
For example, he says, the number one charge by the EEOC is retaliation. That’s not just compliance, it’s the culture and harmony pieces as well.
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On a plane, a seatmate asked Lott what his job was. Lott said, “I help companies avoid lawsuits.” “Are you a lawyer?” asked the seatmate. “No, I’m in HR,” Lott said. “Oh, that’s worse,” the person said.
Reluctance to Sue
Too many CEOs Lott deals with are afraid to fire, he says. One CEO asked him, “What do I do with an employee who keeps coming to work drunk?” Lott wanted to ask, “Whose side of the family is it? Yours or your wife’s?”
Don’t be held hostage by bad employees, Lott says. (‘We can’t fire; we’ll get sued.”) “Good people know who the bad ones are—and they know you know, and they’re watching you to see what you do,” Lott adds. Firing is not a compliance issue. Firing is a strategy, Lott says.
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Millennials? Don’t Blame Them
Lott often hears, “The millennial generation won’t stay, so I won’t train them.” “OK, don’t train them and they’ll stay,” Lott replies. An oft-quoted figure is that 3 to 5 years is the average length of stay of an employee today.
Lott says that we take this number and assume that 20 years ago it would have been much higher, but that’s not the case. In 1983, the number was 3.5 years. So you can’t blame the millennials, says Lott, you have to blame your management.
In fact, the millennials are going to force us to be better managers, Lott says. They know their rights—they’ve grown up watching “The Office” and reading “Dilbert.”
In tomorrow’s Advisor, more of Lott’s “Please Sue Me” suggestions, plus an introduction to an extraordinary training program for leader-managers.
Excellent article! Thank you for reiterating the point that all three pieces of an HR’s job have to come into play in order to have consistency and success. Too many managers are at one of extreme or the other. Either they are too soft and all the other employees that are watching (and they are watching, don’t kid yourself) instantly write off their respect for that manager. Or they rule with fear and intimidation and lose good people because they have never learned how to coach and hold people accountable the proper way.