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Employee Relations

The art of giving positive feedback: 7 simple tips

06/28/2011

Giving feedback is an important legal and practical management task—and certainly not an easy one. Many managers make the mistake of dishing out feedback only when employees do something wrong. But praise can also be an effective motivational tool, if used correctly. Here are seven guidelines to follow:

Face-to-face counseling helps employees grasp benefits

06/27/2011
On average, 30% to 40% of an employee’s total compensation is wrapped up in benefits. Unfortunately, that information is often invisible to employees. The most effective way to make sure employees really know about the benefits you offer, their value and why they’re a great deal is to tell them face-to-face.

Good faith wins court cases! Don’t use investigation to trap employee

06/24/2011

Employers get lots of leeway when it comes to terminating employees. For example, courts generally uphold firing someone for breaking a rule as long as the employer reasonably believed the employee broke the rule—even if it turns out he did not. But when it looks as if the employer tried to trick the employee into breaking a rule, judges won’t look the other way.

Hospital executive pleads guilty to embezzlement charges

06/24/2011

The former executive vice president of the Children’s Hospital of Phila­del­phia has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a 12-year plot to embezzle $1.7 million from the hospital. Roosevelt Hairston Jr. was relieved of his duties in February after hospital auditors found irregularities.

York County official claims hard times led her to steal

06/24/2011
York County Assistant Chief Clerk Vickie Gladfelter has pleaded guilty to stealing more than $347,000 in county funds. She was sentenced to one to five years in state prison. Glad­­felter confessed to a seven-year scheme involving selling used county cell phones and pocketing postal refunds.

Fair harassment investigation can justify firing supervisor

06/24/2011
When investigating supervisor sexual har­assment claims, you must conduct a fair workplace investigation, not a criminal probe. As long as the investigation was fair and the conclusion was reasonable, courts won’t interfere.

When planning layoff, use objective factors

06/24/2011
When deciding who should get the ax during cost-cutting reductions in force, use as many objective factors as possible. For example, use performance measures that include specific achieve­­­ments and rankings based on those achievements.

Tread carefully with pregnant underperformer

06/17/2011

Performance improvement plans (PIPs) can help turn around subpar employees. But if you use PIPs, make sure you implement them equitably. For example, if you place a sales­person on a PIP to raise falling sales, then institute a PIP for everyone whose sales have fallen to the same level. That’s especially important if one of the employees is about to take FMLA leave or is pregnant.

6 steps to take if one of your employees gets arrested

06/17/2011
With a record number of Ameri­cans now in prison and police and prosecutors increasingly taking a hard line on crime of all kinds, more employers are finding themselves unprepared to answer the question: “What do I do now that one of my employees got arrested?”

Failure to investigate alleged harassment brings EEOC lawsuit

06/17/2011
B.J. Con-Sew faces national-origin harassment charges after a Hispanic employee claims he was forced to ­resign to avoid daily harassment. The employee claims he complained to various managers, but no investigation or assistance was forthcoming. Eventually, he quit and filed charges with the EEOC.