Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
by Mark I. Schickman I’ve received lots of e-mails recently about the major conflict still waging over the recent firing of eight U.S. attorneys. You wrote that the U.S. government, as an employer, should be able to fire any employee, so what was wrong if the Attorney General or the President had them fired? That […]
by Tara Eberline The full Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned an earlier ruling by a three-member panel of the same court by ruling that an employee didn’t have enough evidence of national origin discrimination to submit his claims to a jury. The case, which has received national attention, arose after the employer […]
LITIGATION VALUE: $50,000 (with the potential for a whole lot more) So Creed has joined the millions of people blogging at (and about) work. I’d say that this could definitely cause trouble for Dunder Mifflin when Creed eventually learns how to post his musings on something more than a Microsoft Word document. Believe it or […]
Consider the following two scenarios: A male employee requests extended leave to provide at-home care to a sick child. Instead of evaluating the request based on his eligibility for leave, the employer questions why the child’s mother can’t care for her. A qualified female employee with two preschool children is considered a “poor fit” for […]
LITIGATION VALUE: $300,000+ Holding a Survivor-like contest to determine who will be recommended for a promotion to regional manager is not going to end well for Dunder Mifflin. At all. If the decision is challenged (which it almost certainly will be) then the company is going to be asked to articulate a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason […]
LITIGATION VALUE: 1,000,000 + The “women’s appreciation” meeting was a bad idea that was poorly executed. I’m not saying that Dunder Mifflin cannot or should not recognize the achievements of its female employees. It should. I just think that the meeting shouldn’t be announced by saying “I know the crap out of women” and should […]
LITIGATION VALUE: $45,000 Creed’s actions in setting up Debbie Brown to be fired for his mistake were not, in and of themselves, illegal. And, if Dunder Mifflin acted in good faith when it fired Debbie, then it probably didn’t do anything illegal either. At least not on the facts in this episode. Employees can be […]
by Mark I Schickman “Google” has already become a popular verb, meaning to research a name through Internet sources. The word is about to get a secondary meaning: “to provide wall-to-wall perks to company employees.” Largely because of those broad and unusual employee benefits, Google has taken a lock on the top slot on Fortune […]
LITIGATION VALUE: $150,000 I empathize with Michael. There is nothing worse than the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you realize that you just accidentally forwarded that witty e-mail (which you worked on all morning) mocking your boss’s bad suits and strange habits to your boss, herself, rather than to your clever […]
by Scott Holt and Margaret DiBianca For some employees, the weekend starts early, say Wednesday or Thursday, with shorts, jeans, T-shirts, tank tops, and other very casual attire in the office. Revealing clothes, in turn, disclose body piercings and tattoos — things you may prefer to keep covered up. If your employees are coming to […]