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Employee Relations

Can we demand a polygraph test to identify theft suspects?

02/01/2008

Q. Recently, money from my office’s petty cash lockbox came up missing. As a part of our investigation, can we require employees to take a lie detector test? …

Investigation notes, report may prove valuable in court

02/01/2008

How do you handle internal discrimination complaints? If you use an ad hoc process, sometimes taking notes or preparing a report, you may be missing out on an important litigation advantage later. Develop a routine investigation process …

Consider 360º evaluations to catch supervisor-Bias problems

02/01/2008

Sometimes, it’s hard to see what’s actually going on down at the frontline supervisor level. A rogue manager may be spouting all sorts of garbage and getting away with it—until he fires someone who ultimately sues. Then, it may be too late to save the company from a costly jury verdict. One way to spot potential problems is with a simple HR evaluation technique—the so-called 360-degree evaluation …

Employee perks that won’t break the bank and won’t affect compensation calculations

02/01/2008

Q. We are entering our busy season. Although our budget is tight, we’d like to reward those employees who go above and beyond with some sort of additional “perk.” Can you recommend some low-cost ways to reward exceptional performance? …

Don’t let managers fly solo on terminations

02/01/2008

Virginia Schurmeier, an operations analyst for a food wholesale company, was fired for alleged poor performance. She sued, claiming the real reason was sex discrimination. Her proof: A male co-worker who had worse performance appraisals than she had wasn’t fired …

7 ways to get the most out of Millennial employees

02/01/2008
In today’s workplace, many supervisors have to manage people from four different generations, all of which respond to different kinds of carrots, sticks and management styles. The breakdown: Traditional workers: born before 1946 Baby Boomers: 1946–1964 Generation X: 1965–1979 Millennials: 1980–1995 According to anecdotal information and research (see box below), managers in U.S. organizations are […]

How managers can motivate their long-Term employees: 10 tips

02/01/2008

1. Coach them up. Use training, workshops or refresher courses to stimulate longtime workers and expose them to new methods or ideas …

Secret to winning lawsuits: Track all progress, discipline

02/01/2008

The time to prepare for a discharge lawsuit is long before it’s filed. Know that someday, someone will sue you. Prepare accordingly. You won’t know who will sue, or what protected class they will belong to, so you should cover all your bases. That means tracking the progress of every employee and every disciplinary action you take, no matter who the employee is …

Meticulous performance, records win promotion cases

02/01/2008

Just about everyone with an ounce of ambition wants to be promoted. But in most organizations, there’s only so much room for managers and supervisors. Still, failure to win a promotion is one of the most frequent triggers for discrimination lawsuits. That’s why HR should carefully track every employee’s performance and progress …

Consider burden on others when accommodating disabilities

02/01/2008

It’s tough balancing the rights of disabled employees and the rest of your staff. It’s great to be able to offer accommodations that allow a disabled worker to stay in the labor force. But you don’t have to go to such extremes that your other employees have to pick up considerable slack left by the accommodation …