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You can land in trouble for trying to stop harassment

08/01/2004
Issue: Can you encourage employees to report on-the-job harassment from union organizers? Risk: Your efforts may be viewed as an illegal union-busting …

Wal-Mart bias case will give employees bad ideas

08/01/2004
Now would be a good time to review your organization’s hiring, firing, promotion and pay policies for any hint of gender-based differences. Reason: The big Wal-Mart sex discrimination lawsuit that hit …

Mold is gold: Identify problems to avoid lawsuits

08/01/2004
A new National Academy of Sciences study says damp, moldy buildings can make asthma worse and cause coughing and other respiratory problems in healthy people. And mold …

Can employees harass co-workers in the name of ‘creativity’?

07/01/2004
If your workplace has a “creative” side to it, listen up: A court has ruled for the first time that you can defend a sexual harassment claim by arguing a “creative …

Intentional bias can spur court to install applicant into job.

07/01/2004
A school district hired a man rather than Geraldine Fuhr as varsity boys head basketball coach. While the man had two years of experience, Fuhr had been the varsity girls head …

Evaluate your safety efforts with new NIOSH tools

07/01/2004
The National Institute for Occupa-tional Safety and Health (NIOSH) has posted a new guide for employers on how to evaluate workplace safety and health changes. The guidance aims to help organizations …

You can set rules on when employees take vacation time

07/01/2004
While vacation time is a mainstay of basic benefit packages, employers are not legally required to offer paid vacation to employees. But if you do offer vacation time, don’t be afraid …

Pay attention to rising complaints of ‘same-race’ bias

07/01/2004
Issue: Courts are seeing a spike in discrimination claims involving people of the same race.
Risk: Some supervisors wrongly ignore same-race complaints, believing, for example, that “blacks can’t discriminate against …

How to spot a dishonest purchasing manager

07/01/2004
Issue: Employees handling your organization’s purse strings could be pulling them in the wrong way. Risk: Lax controls leave your organization wide open to invoice fraud. Action: Suggest the …

Get tough with habitually absent employees

07/01/2004

Q. We have a new administrative employee in our pediatric office who missed 22 days of work in her first nine weeks. She has doctor excuses for illnesses for most of the days, but my front office is in shambles. Can I put her on written warning for excessive absences? Can I terminate her? —C.F., Georgia