In yesterday’s Advisor we featured the Four M’s of good goalsetting; today, the legal pitfalls that threaten every manager doing appraisals.
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Because poor performance is often advanced as the reason for a termination, the performance appraisal system is often the crux of the defense against a wrongful termination suit. Here’s how to make sure your appraisals hold up.
Direct Legal Problems in Appraisals
One common claim is from an employee who claims that he or she was given a low rating because of membership in a protected class (race, sex, age, religious belief, national origin, veteran status, disability).
To fight these claims, employers may consider three steps:
- Concentrate on the job and the performance of its essential tasks.
- Avoid comments that could suggest a discriminatory attitude (women shouldn’t take jobs like this, men don’t usually take jobs like this).
- Be consistent. Reasonable consistency means treating similarly situated employees the same. Once there’s inconsistency, eventually, there’s going to be the appearance of discrimination.
Hiding Expectations
Another common claim is that the employee never knew what was expected. Sharing expectations and results is part of fairness. Juries want to know, Did the employee get a chance to improve? Did the employee know what the consequences of poor performance were?
Indirect Legal Problems
Many legal problems of appraisals are indirect, for example, documentation issues and inflated ratings.
Documentation Issues
It’s a frequent problem in court that an employer has terminated an employee for poor performance and then the performance appraisal has a block checked “poor” without supporting evidence or documentation. That makes defending the suit tough.
Even worse—the appraisal can’t be found at all. (This is surprisingly and annoyingly frequent.)
HR is changing! (Duh.) But what trends will affect you? Find out major trends with our free downloadable webcast, Top 5 HR Trends that Impact SMBs. Download here.
Inflated Ratings
Another legal problem that plagues performance appraisals is the problem of inflated ratings. These are a lawsuit waiting to happen. Positive or neutral ratings will confound your attempts to explain adverse actions you based on poor performance.
Imagine yourself—perhaps on the witness stand—explaining that a termination was due to incompetence or poor performance or poor attitude. Then the defense attorney produces a string of recent performance appraisals—that you signed—indicating “satisfactory.” (Or, worse, “excellent.”)
Case closed.
Either you were lying when you filled out the appraisal or you’re lying now. Either way, your credibility is shot.
From appraisals to zero tolerance, HR is always challenging and always changing. And it’s just that much more challenging for small and medium-sized businesses that don’t have staff to track trends.
Good news! There’s a timely (and free) HR Webcast, available as an Instant Download called Top 5 HR Trends that Impact SMBs. What are some of the important trends it covers how will they affect the future?
Download the free webcast now.
Technology:
While it’s not quite accurate to describe new technology as a trend–as it is ever evolving and changing–HR professionals need to know how it is improving. Using technology for more transparent communication within an organization is on the rise. The technology trend is calling for companies to tear down their information silos and replace them with open honest communication. Companies need more ways to communicate. What technologies are available and how can it help HR?
People/Talent
What’s happening to the performance review and what role does HR play in a shifting workforce as Millennials join the team?
What to look out for in the second half of 2014. Download the free Top 5 HR Trends that Impact SMBs webcast here.
Big Data
Because of all the new technology and transparency that goes with it, data is becoming a lot easier to find and use to make future decisions. The most important thing to consider is getting to the metrics that really matter–the things that are meaningful and that are actionable. You need to get to the data that will improve your company, processes, workflows and that will impact your strategy. Can you tie that data to revenue? Some of the data that big companies swear by might not apply to your company. Look hard and really nail down which data will be most useful to your company and where it will best impact your company.
Legal
When it comes to people, you want to make sure that not only are you doing what is best for the company but what is legal while keeping up with trends. Compliance, data security, safe harbor compliance, where to store your data and much more.
Download this free 60-minute webcast where we’ll present a proven framework on important HR trends to watch out for and how they will affect you in the future.
Attendees will:
• Understand what is changing in the world of HR.
• Choose the practices that work best for your company.
• Protect your company amidst a changing technological and legal landscape.