Employee Relations

When workplace romance goes bad, fall back on sexual harassment policy for discipline

06/17/2011

It’s bound to happen eventually: Two of your employees will have an affair. Then one of them will break it off, leaving the other hurt, angry and perhaps vengeful. It’s all a recipe for disaster—and HR will have to manage the situation. You can punish them both, assuming they are merely co-workers. But if your rules aren’t very specific, you’ll have to be careful.

Want real employee feedback? Use a focus group

06/15/2011

Employee focus groups are a good way you can uncover issues affecting productivity and retention. Use the following steps to organize your focus groups without excessive red tape or cost:

Quiz for managers: Documenting discipline the legal way

06/14/2011

If an employee ever sues, you need to have strong documentation of performance, behavior and discipline issues. Managers sit on the front lines of the documentation battlefield. Have your supervisors take our quiz to test their knowledge of documentation do’s and don’ts. Plus, learn three documentation rules every manager must know.

How do employees refer to your organization: ‘we’ or ‘they’?

06/13/2011

When talking to friends and family, nearly three-quarters of working Americans (72%) say they refer to the organization where they work at as “we,” while only 20% refer to it as “they,” according to a Kenexa survey.

Which of the following issues causes the biggest problems in your organization?

06/07/2011

When it comes to HR headaches, our readers say employment law issues take a back seat to run-of-the-mill gripes and clashes between co-workers.

Documenting employee discipline: 3 cardinal rules

05/31/2011

Managers should make documentation of employee performance, behavior and discipline a regular habit. Strong documentation is especially important if an employee or ex-employee ever files a legal complaint saying his or her termination or discipline was based on illegal discrimination.

When employees foul up, feel free to tailor your response to fit the circumstances

05/27/2011

Employees break rules from time to time. They make mistakes occasionally. When those things happen, you have to respond. But don’t make the mistake of thinking you must discipline or correct every employee the same way all the time. Management needs the flexibility to tailor solutions to particular problems, because every situation is different.

9 things employees want from their managers (and 5 things they don’t)

05/24/2011

Different employees crave different things from their managers. Here’s practical advice you can give the bosses in your organization. You’ll help them focus on the managerial qualities that matter most to employees—and forget about the window dressing workers don’t care about.

Employee enrichment retains talent, boosts productivity

05/23/2011

The effects of the recession have helped turn the spotlight on innovative employers that seem to have magic formulas for attracting and keeping their employees happy and productive despite the economic forces around them. SAS Institute and Google are two examples of companies that, consciously or not, have tapped into new ways of motivating employees. Call it “employee enrichment.”

Loud and inappropriate gripe? OK to punish, even if complaint involved discrimination

05/20/2011

It goes without saying that employers can’t punish employees because they have complained about discrimination. That would be retaliation, and could mean a lost lawsuit even if the employee wasn’t correct about her allegations. But that doesn’t mean you have to tolerate loud, obnoxious or disruptive complaints, no matter what their content.