• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Discipline / Investigations

Add credibility to investigation notes by having employees acknowledge their accuracy

08/01/2012

If you interview employees during the course of investigating alleged misconduct, make sure to take accurate notes. Then, before concluding the interview, have the employee read and sign the notes, attesting that they accurately reflect what was said. Don’t let the employee put off signing.

Court: Pregnancy plus slipshod discharge investigation doesn’t warrant negligence suit

08/01/2012
A federal court has refused to expand the ways an employee can sue for alleged pregnancy discrimination. Had the female plaintiff succeeded, the case might have opened the door to a runaway jury award.

Beware retaliation following internal bias investigation

08/01/2012
The 7th Circuit has held that employees who participate in employer internal investigations before administrative charges or lawsuits have been filed are not protected from retaliation. It’s different, however, after such charges have been filed.

Violence flares? You can discipline flexibly

07/16/2012
Do you have a zero-tolerance policy for workplace violence? That doesn’t mean you have to fire everyone who violates the letter of the rule. You can use some discretion, as long as you document why.

Detail discipline so you can later explain why punishment was appropriate and fair

07/16/2012
A discrimination lawsuit compares what happened to the complaining employee with what happened to others outside his protected class. Details matter. For example, an isolated instance of rude behavior is one thing, but constant rudeness is something else entirely. It can justify different, more severe punishment.

Does an employee have a right to ‘correct’ a discipline report that’s going into her file?

07/10/2012

Q. We recently disciplined an employee for repeated insubordination because of her attitude toward her supervisor. We wrote her up and placed a warning report in her file. Now she is protesting the accuracy of the report and demanding the chance to “correct” it. Can we force her to sign our disciplinary report as-is?

Keep detailed, contemporaneous records to show you are vigilant and consistent about discipline

07/08/2012
Lots of discipline takes place out of sight of most employees. Employees may be reprimanded or otherwise punished for inappropriate behavior without co-workers ever finding out. Sometimes, even the employee who raised the original problem—for example, harassment or an inappropriate joke—may not know the outcome.

Police called in response to workplace harassment? You must still act to stop future incidents

07/02/2012

If a co-worker, supervisor or cus­­tomer sexually assaults an em­ployee and the police are called in, the employer must still take reasonable steps to stop the harassment and prevent another assault. It’s not enough to rely on the police to take care of the problem.

Wexford comptroller had a good gig … while it lasted

07/02/2012
Patricia Smith, the former comptroller for the Baierl Acura dealership in Wexford, lived lavishly for 6½ years. Now Smith is trading in haute couture for prison coveralls after pleading guilty to embezzling more than $10 million from her employer between late 2004 and July 2011.

Union boss embezzled union funds for gambling

07/01/2012
Ernest Milewski, the Wilkes-Barre union official who earlier this year pleaded guilty to embezzling union funds and the assets of a health care benefit program, used his sentencing hearing to come clean on the reason why he stole the money—to pay for an out-of-control gambling habit.