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Discrimination / Harassment

EEOC speaks out against ‘Language preference’ bias

06/01/2007

It’s not just about “English-only” rules anymore. Now employers have to worry if they discriminate among the different languages they allow employees to speak at work …

Are your policies biased against employee caregivers?

06/01/2007

If you’ve never heard of “family-responsibility discrimination,” or FRD, you soon will. This subset of sex discrimination is a form of gender bias brought by employees who claim they were treated unfairly because they fulfilled caregiving roles for children or elderly parents …

Bosses make hiring decision within 10 minutes

06/01/2007

While execs spend an average of 55 minutes interviewing staff-level applicants (and 86 minutes for management candidates), they form an opinion of job-seekers in an average of 10 minutes …

Survey: Men Upset About Female Co-Workers’ Flex Time

06/01/2007

Remind managers that approvals for flex-time requests should be gender-neutral. A new Adecco survey shows that men believe that moms at their workplace are given special treatment when it comes to flex time …

EEOC grip tightens: New strategy = more cases

06/01/2007

Be alert: A seemingly small bureaucratic change at the EEOC could lead to an increasing number of employment-related lawsuits filed by the agency, plus more-targeted enforcement …

‘How may I insult you?’ Rude salespeople ignite bias suits

06/01/2007

You’d think the sight of customers paying retail prices with real green money would be a sight for a salesperson’s sore eyes. That apparently wasn’t the case at a Dillard’s department store in Kansas City, which is now facing a messy lawsuit after a saleswoman shunned a customer …

Pregnant employees: Where can you draw the line?

06/01/2007

Pregnant employees and applicants are protected by two federal employment laws: the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the FMLA …

Probation protects in case of bad background checks

06/01/2007

One good reason to have new employees serve a probationary period is that it gives you more time to check their backgrounds and find out whether they were forthcoming on their applications …

Going over supervisor’s head may be a protected activity

06/01/2007

Organizations are entitled to their employee’s loyalty, but that doesn’t mean employees have to remain silent about alleged discrimination. Although it may seem disloyal, approaching a customer about a workplace problem may be a protected activity under some circumstances …

Audit past leave credits when crafting early retirement plan

06/01/2007

If your organization is considering early retirement as an incentive to move out highly compensated employees, do your homework first. To properly calculate seniority, you’ll need to check how unpaid leave was handled years ago …