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Employment Contracts

Use severance as a hiring tool; more applicants ask

07/01/2004
Issue: Survivors of recent layoffs are asking about severance plans before signing on. Benefit: More than ever, a good severance plan can help lure the best candidates. Action: Trumpet …

Preserve at-will rights by ditching your employee probation period

06/01/2004
If your employee handbook or job-offer letters say new hires will face a 60- or 90-day probation period, you should consider dropping that policy or, at the very least, referring to …

Continued employment may be enough to make noncompetes legal

06/01/2004
If you ask employees to sign an agreement not to compete with your organization for a certain length of time after they leave, the agreement isn’t binding unless you offer the …

Supreme Court expands filing window in ‘Section 1981’ cases

06/01/2004
The U.S. Supreme Court last month set a four-year statute of limitations in so-called “Section 1981” discrimination cases.
While most employees file discrimination cases under Title VII of the Civil …

Your probation period: a lawsuit waiting to happen

06/01/2004

If your employee handbook or job-offer letters say new hires will face a probation period of, say 60 or 90 days, you should consider dropping that policy.

Give employees advance notice of pay changes

06/01/2004
Issue: Should you provide notice about commission-formula changes that could alter employees’ pay? Risk: If you rework pay formulas behind employees’ backs, you could bump up against state wage laws. …

To keep noncompetes legal, include fair restrictions

06/01/2004
Issue: Noncompete agreements are more easily signed than enforced. Risk: One sure way to crush your noncompete’s legality is to include overly restrictive time and geographical limits. Action: Make …

Revisit severance pay as a recruiting tool

05/01/2004
If your organization has offered little or no severance pay, now’s a good time to beef up that benefit.
Reason: Choppy economic conditions the past few years saw many employees …

Don’t bend truth in exchange for lawsuit waiver

04/01/2004
Former employees may ask you to put the best face, and possibly an unrealistic face, on their employment record, in exchange for releasing any lawsuit claims against you. But don’t enter …

Oral promise of long-term job will trump written at-will agreement

04/01/2004
Caution your hiring managers to avoid making, or even hinting at, guarantees to prospective employees about long-term job commitments. “Talking up” permanence to lure applicants could crush your ability to fire …