HR Esq Posts
It is no surprise that many people spend more time at work than engaged in any other activity. It’s no wonder that workplace romances sprout—often bringing grief to HR Managers. In an attempt to curb potential sexual harassment claims, workplace r...
Knowledge and information is HR’s commodity. With one of HR’s responsibilities being compliance with the myriad U.S. employment laws that apply to your company, knowledge of those laws, and the actions your company needs to take to...
I know we’re all busy, but HR managers really need to train their managers on human resources basics. Take this sick-leave situation which demonstrates the type of scenarios I’ve had to deal with regularly—a real comedy of erro...
Many companies unnecessarily use employment contracts with all their employees. Instead of these documents providing specific legal protections for the company (the very reason to utilize a contract), many documents I see in my practice are often trying to be something they are not.
"Management training" is a hot topic among human resources professionals. They know it should be done—must be done—but convincing key executives is sometimes a challenge. Here is a scenario based on a real situation (names changed, o...
Most HR Managers know that employers are obligated to provide reasonable accommodations for an employee’s religious practices—but do your managers actually go through the necessary conversations the law obligates you to have?
In an unprecedented move, the SEC (yes, that would be the Securities and Exchange Commission) has shown interest in investigating the hiring practices of a U.S. food chain—the Chipotl...
The position recently taken by the U.S. EEOC ("Equal Employment Opportunity Commission") regarding employers’ use of criminal convictions in the hiring process is not new. The EEOC has recognized for years that arrest and conviction rate...
Telecommuting could seem like a win-win situation for employers and employees, especially with the price of gasoline. However, there are a few pitfalls HR managers should watch out for when company managers suggest (or employees request) teleco...
Apparently, in response to the legal cases reprimanding employers for improperly obtaining access to their e...
In late 2011, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) aimed to halt what they termed "the business practice of misclassifying employees in order to avoid providing employment protections."
Although you may not realize it, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which is usually thought of as protecting the rights of union workers in the U.S., also has the ability to reach into non-unionized employee relations.
When the economy begins to improve (or when a business puts attention on its own improvement), adding sales people is a frequent focus. Unfortunately, there are a number of hidden employment law issues that businesses are often unaware of. Whe...
In my practice, I am often frustrated by lawsuits that could have been avoided. Managers take improper actions and make mistakes that they do not know they are making. The company loses money and becomes embroiled in preventable lawsuits becau...
Few clients who call me because they want to fire a pregnant lady seek to do so BECAUSE of the pregnancy. None of these situations was like the employer on the TV show "Harry’s Law" who had a "one child only" policy and fired the pregnant...
Employees are forever trying to argue that time outside their working hours should be counted as working time because, after all, the employee was "working." Let us take a look at if thinking about work while commuting turns commute into work
I know some businesses see employment lawyers as necessary evils. They are "forced" to hire them when employees bring what they believe are bogus employee claims. They moan about the time on the phone; the time spent gathering documents; and t...
What an employer likely should do in that situation, and what legal impact the refusal to sign may have, if any, depends on the document the employee refused to sign.
HR partners need to ensure that managers don’t treat their employees the way that some emergency rooms treat patients.. They need to ensure they do not GOMER (which stands for "Get Out of My Emergency Room) the employees otherwise you risk a lawsuit.
No one wants their former employees’ harassment or discrimination claim to move forward to litigation. When it does, chances are your managers are not prepared. I don’t mean that they won’t be prepared for their depositions. Here are 6 questions that the attorneys of employees use to trap managers.
Most businesses know that they should check applicants’ references by speaking with their prior employers. After all, failing to do so could open a company up to a negligent hiring claim, should the new employee turn out to be violent, ha...
As if HR managers didn’t have enough to worry about, the EEOC (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that enforces the Federal Non-Discrimination Laws) recently held a hearing aimed at determining whether companies...
Performance Management & Performance Reviews: Getting Managers to Manage
I often see two extremes with my clients—they either want to (1) jump the gun and not take just one more step that would protect their business, or (...
In my practice, I would like to be able to rely on job descriptions for my clients in a lot of legal cases. "Would like to"—because often the documents my...
