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Policies / Handbooks

Avoid liability for employee use of personal vehicles

07/27/2017
Do you sometimes require employees to use their personal cars during the workday for job-related tasks like making banking runs or delivering supplies? If so, you’re risking liability if the employee is in an accident and a jury decides he was negligent.

What to do if you suspect workplace thievery

07/27/2017
Fraud prevention experts believe in the 10-10-80 rule: 10% of employees never steal, 10% do, the rest will go either way depending on the circumstances.

Google HR: Pay ‘unfairly,’ give freedom & meaning

07/27/2017

Laszlo Bock, the former senior VP of people operations at Google and author of the book Work Rules!, helped grow Google’s workforce from 6,000 to 76,000 in the past decade. At the SHRM conference this summer, Bock offered these tips for HR.

Telecommuting: A search for equilibrium

07/20/2017
Even as the overall numbers of telecommuting employees rises, some companies are reconsidering their telecommuting policies. The fluid situation suggests that there is no one-size-fits-all policy that covers the who, how and when of telecommuting.

Cost of misguided English-only rule: $50,000

07/06/2017
Most “English-only” policies violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. They are not strictly unlawful, but courts and the EEOC have regularly ruled that employers must be able to demonstrate a legitimate business reason for having such a policy.

Just because handbook doesn’t address issue doesn’t mean employees can’t sue

07/03/2017
The fact that a handbook doesn’t address a particular subject does not mean that employees who believe there are pertinent unwritten rules can’t get class certification to sue over an allegedly informal policy.

The law is enough: Handbook doesn’t create extraordinary right to sue for retaliation

06/28/2017
Many state and federal statutes make it unlawful for employers to retaliate against employees who file internal discrimination complaints or otherwise claim that some wrongdoing has occurred. These laws have specific, and limited, remedies.

Is what we wear to work up to [dress] code?

06/27/2017
Casual dress codes cause confusion for many workers, new research from staffing firm OfficeTeam shows.

Document that you held anti-harassment training

06/19/2017
It’s easier to defeat sexual harassment lawsuits if you have a robust anti-harassment policy and let employees know exactly how to use it. The key is to prove that the worker knew about the policy but failed to use it.

Never fire to avoid paying expensive benefits

06/19/2017
Here’s advice if you’re ever tempted to fire an at-will employee because she is about to start racking up expensive claims using your employer-provided benefits: Don’t do it!