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Employment Law

Can we recoup training costs by withholding pay from an employee’s last paycheck?

08/26/2009

Q. We’ve started requiring employees to repay (through payroll deduction) training costs if they quit or are fired within one year. Are we OK legally?

Are drug testing programs constitutional?

08/26/2009

Q. An employee says our drug testing program violates his constitutional rights. What can I tell him to prove that we’re well within the law?

How do we compensate for out-of-town seminar?

08/26/2009

Q. How should we compensate an hourly employee for an out-of-town, two-day (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) seminar? In particular, should we pay for the hours during the overnight hotel stay, since the employee must sleep there to be ready for the next day’s session?

The 9 rule changes rocking the FMLA world

08/25/2009

For the past 15 years, complying with the FMLA has been complex, but at least the law stayed the same. But earlier this year, that all changed when the first major overhaul of the FMLA took effect. Here are the details on the changes every HR pro must understand.

Confront bigotry—it won’t go away by itself

08/25/2009

It may be tempting to ignore rumors about racial or other hostility in the workplace. But you do so at the company’s peril—especially if some of that hostility is coming from a supervisor who has the power to hire and fire.

Duties, not title, determine harasser’s status

08/25/2009

Employees whose supervisors sexually harass them have a fairly easy time winning their cases. But courts are much more lenient when the alleged harasser is a co-worker. That means employers can relax a little if an employee complains about a co-worker. Fortunately, the alleged harasser’s title isn’t the deciding factor. Instead, courts look to the actual job responsibilities.

Supreme Court toughens path for workers’ age bias suits

08/25/2009

In an important victory for employers, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this summer that for employees to successfully bring lawsuits under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, they must now show that age discrimination was the cause of their termination or other adverse job action …

Rely on individual disability accommodations; you won’t be targeted for a class action

08/25/2009

Here’s a bit of good news for employers: While class-action lawsuits have been all the rage in recent years, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to expand the types of cases that can become class-action claims when the ADA is at the heart of the case.

Call lawyer when changes mean employees must sign releases

08/25/2009

Sometimes, it pays to take the time and spend the money to have legal experts carefully review your proposed actions. That’s especially true if your company is changing the way it does business in a fundamental way and wants employees to sign off on changes that dramatically affect how they are paid or whether they remain employees.

Document rationale and process for every firing decision

08/25/2009

Courts seldom second-guess firing decisions if employers can articulate solid reasons for the discharge—and take the time to document their decision-making processes. That’s because employees who want to challenge their employer’s termination decisions have to raise suspicions that the employer’s reason was not credible and that it wasn’t really a motivating factor in the decision.