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HR Management

Supreme Court rejects EEOC’s broad definition of ‘supervisor’

08/13/2013
In a major victory for employers, the Supreme Court in June ruled that, in Title VII cases, only someone with the power to take “tangible employment action” can be considered a supervisor. The Court’s decision in Vance v. Ball State will make it harder for employees to sue for supervisor bias, a claim that carries strict employer liability.

Public employers: OK to demand medical records if drug test leads to rehab

08/13/2013
Public employees who work in jobs related to public health and safety and who test positive for drugs can’t refuse to sign medical releases related to treatment for drug and alcohol problems.

Anti-harassment policy, training are meaningless if supervisors decide to ignore them

08/13/2013
When a co-worker makes himself a nuisance (or worse), a robust anti-harassment policy, a clear reporting method and swift and sure action will cut liability in almost all cases. But what if the policy isn’t en­­forced or a supervisor learns about the harassment but ignores the problem and doesn’t take action? Then all bets are off.

HR: Corporate America’s social media cops

08/12/2013
HR takes the lead in enforcing employer policies regulating how employees use social media, according to research by the Society for Human Resource Management.

To do: Complete and file 2013 EEO-1 surveys by Sept. 30

08/06/2013
You should have an envelope from the EEOC in your in-box. The contents: the 2013 EEO-1 Survey. By law, affected employers must file their EEO-1 reports by Sept. 30.

‘Nonterritorial’ workplace allows maximum employee choice

08/05/2013
Some lucky employees have all kinds of options when choosing where to get their work done. Their em­­ployers have embraced what I call the “nonterritorial workplace.” It allows employees to work wherever they will be most productive on any given day.

The HR I.Q. Test: August ’13

08/01/2013
Test your knowledge of recent trends in employment law, comp & benefits and other HR issues with our monthly mini-quiz …

There’s a reason for all those disciplinary rules!

07/31/2013
You should be able to easily pull up every employee’s disciplinary history and show that the employee received a copy, acknowledged an oral warning or was counseled. Consider what happened in the following case when recordkeeping lapsed.

Discuss firing only with those who need to know

07/30/2013
As a general rule, you should only discuss a worker’s termination with those who really need to know about it. That’s especially true in sensitive cases involving alleged fraud, theft or falsifications. You don’t want to lose a defamation case because a manager decided to make an example of a fired employee.

EEOC seeks to block book company’s severance releases

07/30/2013
North Carolina-based national book distributor Baker & Taylor faces challenges to language in the release it includes in all its severance packages. The EEOC claims the release violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by forcing employees to sign “broad, misleading and unenforceable” agreements to receive severance pay.