Tag: Holland Hart

Take Extra Care When Firing or Laying Off Disabled Employees

As a result of the recent economic crisis, many employers have been faced with the unpleasant task of laying off workers. But what happens when one of those employees is disabled? We recently received a question addressing that very issue. The situation involved a severely disabled part-time worker who was hired to stuff envelopes as […]

Furloughs and Reduced-Hour Schedules As Alternatives to Layoffs

Layoffs have many downsides. Employee morale is guaranteed to drop. A company’s unemployment insurance premiums will rise, perhaps steeply. And if an employer provides severance packages and/or outplacement services, they could get very expensive. If layoffs are significant in number, a business may not be able to adequately compete once the economy turns around. And […]

Unforeseeable Circumstances Justify Layoff Without WARN Notice

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act) requires employers with 100 or more workers to provide 60 days’ advance notice of a plant closing or mass layoff. Sometimes employers need to act quickly to lay off employees and can’t provide the 60 days’ notice required by the WARN Act. A recent decision from […]

Giving Accurate Performance Evaluations

Seasons greetings! It’s that time of year again. No, we aren’t talking about shopping ’til you drop, New Year’s resolutions, or holiday parties (at least not in this article). It’s time to start thinking about employee performance evaluations. Evaluate your employment practices, including performance evaluations, with the Employment Practices Self-Audit Workbook A gift that keeps […]

Giving Accurate Performance Evaluations

Seasons greetings! It’s that time of year again. No, we aren’t talking about shopping ’til you drop, New Year’s resolutions, or holiday parties (at least not in this article). It’s time to start thinking about employee performance evaluations. Evaluate your employment practices, including performance evaluations, with the Employment Practices Self-Audit Workbook A gift that keeps […]

Is Breaking the Law Protected Activity by Employees When Filing an EEOC Charge?

Imagine this: One of your employees violates company policy and state law by disclosing confidential company records to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to buttress her discrimination charge. After learning about the activity, you fire the employee — who then sues you, claiming you retaliated against her for filing an EEOC charge. Does an […]

Effective Employment Reference Policies

Widespread among employers today is a “neutral reference” strategy in providing employment references for current or former employees. In fact, many attorneys have urged clients to adopt this policy to decrease exposure to liability. Of course, when you’re the one seeking a reference on a job applicant, this type of policy severely limits the information […]

‘Willful’ Violations under FMLA Clarified

by Alyssa Yatsko Under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), an employee has two years from the date of an FMLA violation to file a lawsuit against his employer. If the violation was “willful,” however, the employee has three years to file the lawsuit. Up until now, the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals […]

Employees Hold the Key to Employers’ Data Security

by Mark Wiletsky It has become almost commonplace to hear that a government agency or private corporation has been the victim of a data security breach. As a result, hundreds of customers’ or employees’ personal data is at risk of being used for criminal purposes such as identity theft. Approximately 70 percent of those breaches […]

It’s College Bowl — and Office Pool — Season

by John Husband Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. ~ Vince Lombardi I understand what it means to be an avid college football fan. In my earlier days, I was fortunate to be on three Big Ten Conference […]