In yesterday’s Advisor, Hunter Lott of Please Sue Me fame, offered his lawsuit avoidance tips. Today, his advice on legal exposure in 2011, plus an introduction to the new 24/7 leadership training system.
What percent of charges did the EEOC drop last year? Lott asks. More than 64 percent. “That’s us!” Lott says. That’s HR making the manager document. “We should get a $5000 bonus every time a case gets dropped,” he quips.
Lott, a lawsuit avoidance expert found at PleaseSueMe.com, offered his tips at the SHRM Annual Conference and Exhibition held recently in Las Vegas.
Start Thinking Backward
In HR, we do things backward, says Lott. For example, we throw a party when someone leaves. How about a stay party? He asks.
And we do an exit interview when someone leaves. Now that the person’s leaving we’re going to be honest with each other? How about being honest while the person is employed? Get rid of exit interviews, Lott recommends.
How about replacing exit interviews with stay interviews? Once a quarter, take the employee to lunch and ask what’s going on, what are we doing right. Happy people don’t sue, says Lott.
By the way, he says, every ‘A’ player that leaves takes two—because they’re so connected. Lott ran into a situation in which a young person had a bad interview on campus. He quickly entered his opinion of the company on his Facebook page: Drop this company, they’re bad news. Unfortunately for the company, he had 400 friends, each of whom had 400 friends, and the recruiter was left high and dry—no one else interviewed.
Your #1 Exposure
What’s your number one exposure? Still wage and hour, says Lott. And the DOL is trying to make it easier and easier for employees to sue. Now there’s an app for that. DOL wants to empower employees to keep track of their hours and wages.
One of Lott’s attorney colleagues says that wage and hour is “70 percent of my business. It’s low hanging fruit—I make a phone call, the company writes a check, I get 30 percent. ”
You know your managers could do a better job if they were trained, and now there’s a convenient and reasonable way to get it done—BLR’s Leadership Library at the online, 24/7, Employee Training Center. Get More Information
Probationary Periods: Safe or Risky?
Get rid of probationary periods, says Lott. They are a bluff. Employees still have their same rights. At the very least, having a probationary period puts “at will” in play, says Lott.
No Dating Policy: Safe or Risky?
This generation is going to meet and marry at work, says Lott. Because people are marrying later, childhood sweethearts aren’t getting married any more. HR puts together some strange policies to try to avoid liability. For example, “If you are dating, you have to turn yourself in.”
And then there are the policies against married people supervising each other. Gay partners can supervise each other, ex-spouses who hate each other can supervise each other, but married people can’t.
Get out of policies and procedures that you can’t or won’t enforce. Here’s Lott’s answer; issue a policy that says “Any relationship on or off the job that affects your ability to do your job or our ability to run our business may be a valid reason for firing.”
As Lott says, happy, well-managed people don’t sue. Unfortunately, it’s no secret that one of the primary reasons people leave their jobs is poor management. By developing good managers you can help reduce turnover, improve morale and increase production, and that’s to say nothing of avoiding expensive lawsuits.
How can you go about training your leaders? It’s never easy to find the time or the money, but leadership training has a tremendous ROI value for employers.
The Leadership Library provides you with a sensible (and economic) solution.
The Leadership Library for Managers and Supervisors allows you to:
- Train on demand. Employees can complete training anytime from anywhere. All they need is a computer and an internet connection.
- Reinforce training topics with engaging graphics and quizzes to test their knowledge.
- Monitor and track the results of your training program with the built-in recordkeeping tool.
- Save costs. The more you train, the more cost-effective the training becomes.
The Leadership for Managers and Supervisors Library is a Web-based training tool that can be utilized by any organization. All you need is a computer and Internet access, and the library is open 24/7.
Despaired of ever getting your managers and supervisors trained? It isn’t easy to fit it in—schedule-wise or budget-wise—but now there’s BLR’s Leadership Training for Managers and Supervisors. Train all your people, at their convenience, 24/7, for one standard fee. Get More Information
The Leadership Library trains your managers on the fundamental skills required for successful team management and organizational communication.
The courses cover a range of leadership and managerial topics, including the following:
- Business Writing Skills for Supervisors
- Dealing with Change: How Supervisors Can Help
- Motivating Employees: Tips and Tactics for Supervisors
- Effective Communication for Supervisors
- Conflict Resolution and Consensus Building
- Workplace Ethics for Supervisors
- Encouraging Employee Input
- Negotiation Skills For Supervisors
- Time Management for Supervisors
- Professional Behavior: What Supervisors Need to Know
- Performance Goals for Supervisors
- New Supervisors’ Guide to Effective Supervision
- Problem Solving for Supervisors
- How to Manage Challenging Employees
- Coaching for Superior Employee Performance: Techniques for Supervisors
- Effective Meetings: How-to for Supervisors
- Leadership Skills: What New Managers and Supervisors Need to Know
This turnkey service requires no setup, no course development time, no software installation, and no new hardware. Your employees can self-register, and training can be taken anytime (24/7), anywhere there is a PC and an Internet connection. Courses take only about 30 minutes to complete.
The Employee Training Center automatically documents training. As trainees sign on, their identifications are automatically registered. When the program is completed, the trainee’s score is entered. So, when you want to see who has been trained on any subject, or look at the across-the-board activity of any one employee, it’s all there, instantly available.
Course certificates can be automatically generated from within the training center and are automatically retained for recordkeeping purposes.
Get started today on helping your managers and supervisors be the best they can be!