Policies / Handbooks

How to handle requests for religious time off

10/09/2018

It’s perfectly legitimate to require employees to request religious leave well in advance. If you have a process to ask for time off for other kinds of leave, use it for handling requests for religious leave, too.

Disability: Beware docking attendance points

10/04/2018

Policies designed to encourage regular attendance often use a point system to determine when employees who miss work will receive discipline. But that simplicity may create legal problems.

Where did all the pens go? Getting a handle on petty theft

09/14/2018

A pen here, a stack of Post-It notes there—employees bringing home items from work for personal use or to supplement their kid’s school box may not initially seem like a big deal. But think for a moment about multiple individuals repeatedly swiping things, and it’s easy to see how a costly mess can develop quickly.

What to include in your technology policy

09/13/2018

Any employer that provides telephones, computers or mobile devices should craft a clear technology policy that governs proper use and lists impermissible uses of equipment.

Train bosses: You must report all harassment

09/05/2018

Anyone who sees harassment happening should say something to the appropriate company office or individual in charge of preventing and stopping harassment. The EEOC takes this “see something, say something” reporting requirement very seriously.

Auto-erased surveillance video can be perfectly legal

08/08/2018

Do you take video recordings of the workplace and automatically delete them based on a set schedule? That’s fine as long as you haven’t been notified of pending litigation.

Go beyond harassment best practices: Add respect to your culture

07/26/2018

This current wave of harassment accusation appears to be a fundamental climate change in how our culture handles power and ethics. Your organization has two choices—be reactive and live in fear of it happening to you, or be proactive and get ahead of it.

Warn supervisors: Never delete texts and emails related to employee’s complaint

07/24/2018

Be sure to warn supervisors and managers that if an employee has filed an EEOC or internal complaint or a state or federal lawsuit, deleting texts or emails related even tangentially to the underlying complaint can be risky.

Even with FMLA, enforce no-show/no-call rule

07/24/2018

Employers can and should set reasonable standards for how employees let their bosses know they won’t be coming to work. Those rules can require calling in before the start of a shift if the employee is ill or has a medical emergency, even if it may be covered by the FMLA.

When punishing harassment, you may discipline different perpetrators differently

07/14/2018

Employers investigating workplace harassment accusations may wonder if all the alleged perpetrators must be disciplined equally harshly. You do have some discretion in how you mete out punishment. Just make sure you can later justify why one party was less culpable or deserved a lesser punishment than others.