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Discipline / Investigations

Must we pay workers who have been suspended?

08/06/2010
Q. We recently sent an employee home for not following his supervisor’s instructions. Do we have an obligation to pay him for the full day regardless? How should we handle this situation in the future? Is this considered administrative leave?

$6 million fraud scheme earns five years in prison

07/30/2010
Chad Jurgens of Big Lake will spend the next five years in the big house after admitting to scheming to defraud his employer, computer hard drive manufacturer Seagate Technologies.

Kucinich & Fudge ask for DFAS investigation

07/30/2010
U.S. Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Marcia Fudge, members of Congress from Ohio, have asked the Acting Comptroller of the United States and the Inspector General of the Department of Defense to investigate allegations of racial discrimination at the Cleveland facility of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS).

Unbiased investigation stops retaliation suits

07/23/2010

Complaining about things like pay disparities and other alleged acts of discrimination doesn’t make an employee immune from discipline. But if the timing between the complaint and the discipline is too close, watch out for a retaliation lawsuit. Make sure that doesn’t happen by setting up a process in which disciplinary recommendations are based on an independent investigation.

Suspect employee crime? Call the cops already!

07/23/2010

Managers may be reluctant to report potential employee theft to the police, assuming that if they are wrong, they could be sued. But chances are that, if an employer acts in good faith, it won’t be liable—even if it turns out the employee is innocent.

You don’t always have to be right–as long as you act in good faith

07/23/2010
Here’s good news for supervisors who are afraid of making the wrong disciplinary decision: Employers don’t have to be right every time about the underlying reasons for disciplinary action. Instead, what counts is acting in good faith.

When investigating sexual harassment, consider all the evidence–including nonsexual threats

07/23/2010

You no doubt take sexual harassment complaints seriously and promptly try to learn the facts. But which facts should you consider when deciding whether the conduct creates a hostile work environment? Look at the totality of the circumstances. For example, comments that aren’t directly sexual can still contribute to a hostile environment if the context indicates that the comments are related to others that are sexual.

When you learn of possible harassment, investigate promptly, take fast action

07/09/2010

Employers that act fast when an employee complains about any form of harassment can almost always salvage what would otherwise be a very bad situation. The key is prompt investigation—followed by equally fast and decisive action if it turns out the complaint has merit.

Are there other steps we should have taken before following discipline with termination?

07/02/2010
Q. We fired one of our truck drivers after giving him a written warning about continued lateness in completing weekly logs. Should we have taken any other action prior to his termination?

Document rationale for all discipline to show it wasn’t a pretext for bias

06/29/2010

If you carefully document disciplinary actions and punish all employees fairly, courts will usually uphold your decisions. That’s because an employee who challenges the reason for her discharge has to show that the reason wasn’t legitimate—that, rather, the rationale was merely a pretext for some form of discrimination. And it takes more than just coincidence to do that.