Productivity / Performance

Checklist: 15 questions to ask employees in their first 60 days

05/18/2010

How’s that new hire fitting in? To find out, have managers meet with their new employees within the first 60 days. The goal: Discover what new hires like and dislike about the job and environment, see if the job meets their expectations and nip potential problems in the bud. These 15 questions can steer the conversation.

E-Mail and Internet Usage: Legal Risks & Sample Policy

05/11/2010

Employers have any number of legitimate reasons to monitor employees’ e-mail and Internet usage. Beyond personal productivity issues, you risk significant loss should an employee download a virus or other damaging software or engage in illegal activity conducted on company computers. Here’s a discussion of the risks, plus a sample policy …

When creating job descriptions, focus on ‘essential functions’ employees really perform

05/10/2010

Courts hearing ADA cases generally trust employers to establish which job functions are essential and which ones are not. But that doesn’t mean you can trump up job descriptions with “essential functions” that are never performed. Courts sometimes see that as a way to avoid having to reasonably accommodate disabled employees. They’ll only consider those functions that employees perform in reality.

PDA: No special treatment for pregnant workers

05/10/2010

As the name clearly implies, the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) makes it illegal to discriminate against women who are pregnant. But it doesn’t mean pregnant employees are entitled to special privileges. In fact, the PDA merely makes clear that employers must treat pregnant employees the same way they treat every other employee.

Employee is pregnant? You can still discipline or fire if she violates your policies

05/07/2010

Federal courts don’t have much patience for faulty logic. A U.S. District Court in New York recently issued a particularly stinging rebuke to a nurse whose pregnancy discrimination case hinged on the “fallacious syllogism” that “I was fired; I was pregnant when I was fired; therefore, I was fired because I was pregnant.”

Firing a boss who’s racially insensitive? You can cite ‘poor performance’ as reason

04/23/2010

It often becomes apparent that managers who were supposed to prevent discrimination weren’t doing an effective job. For the good of the company, it’s sometimes necessary to fire those bosses for tolerating discrimination or harassment. And those managers will probably sue, too. Good news: You can cite their attitudes to show they weren’t performing their jobs to your reasonable expectations.

Now he tells us he’s disabled! Must we still accommodate with a flexible schedule?

04/09/2010

Q. Our employment application asks applicants if they are capable of satisfactorily performing the essential job duties required of the position for which they are applying. We hired a worker who later told us that he has a medical condition that prevents him from coming to work on time and, on some days, coming to work at all. Are we required to accommodate this individual?

‘Babies-at-work’ benefits answer a crying need

04/06/2010

Even as the economy forces some organizations to cut benefits, it’s prompting others to add one: allowing parents to bring their babies to work. In just two years, the number of organizations with a babies-at-work benefit has more than doubled. The key, experts say, is to set up formal policies to guide moms and managers alike. Here’s how one company does it.

Flex work heads list of employer retention strategies

03/24/2010

While hopeful economic news has some companies breathing a cautious sigh of relief when it comes to headcount, others continue to face staffing challenges. In addition to salary and productivity, a variety of retention issues are worrying some organizations this year as the economy rebounds. When employers were asked in a new CareerBuilder survey how they will hold onto top talent this year, flexible work arrangements topped the list.

How to handle a lying employee

03/22/2010

Q. We have an employee who tells his boss he has finished projects when he really hasn’t. Frankly, half the time we don’t believe him when he says something. What can we do?