Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
A Merced County jury has returned an $800,000 verdict for a Washington Mutual bank teller who claimed that the bank failed to reasonably accommodate her and engage in an interactive process when she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from a bank robbery. How To Survive an Employee Lawsuit: 10 Tips for Success With lawsuits […]
What right do employers have to access personal e-mail records or personal e-mail accounts that are on company-owned computers? — Robert, HR Manager in L.A. Technology-related privacy concerns are on the rise for nearly every HR professional. We sought Trey Wichmann’s views on this question. In this situation, the employer’s rights depend […]
We had a serious discrimination and retaliation claim. The underlying claim got dismissed but the retaliation claim stuck. I think there’s another one in the offing. How can we train our managers and supervisors to avoid retaliation?
We need to help our managers do a better job with discipline. What suggestions do you have for making the process more effective and less adversarial?
Somehow the new thing with our employees is to “protect their interests” in meetings. Almost every time we have a meeting, they want to bring a witness along and they want to tape record the meeting. Do we have to allow this? —Susan P., HR Director in Merced
We have a policy we’re planning to change. We told the affected employees that we will be handling the issue a particular way, but we didn’t explicitly tell them that the new practice is contrary to what is in the handbook, or that we intend to change the policy as it is currently stated in […]
Do you think exit interviews are helpful? We just had a case in which an ex-employee, during the exit interview, accused a manager of discrimination. The manager blew it off, saying, “Oh, she’s just a disgruntled employee who’s letting off steam on her way out,” and nothing came of it. I don’t know whether it’s […]
We’ve got some conflicting “affinity groups” at our organization. We thought it would be a good idea to support these groups and that doing so would help our diversity initiative. We support them a little financially, provide space, and let the groups organize on company time. Now some of the groups are getting a little […]