Policies / Handbooks

Can we make employee cover up her tattoos?

02/24/2011

Q. One of our employees has tattoos on her upper arms. She usually wears long sleeves, but summer is coming. Can we require her to cover the tattoos? We don’t have any kind of a dress code, but would implement one if it meant she had to cover them.

Tell staff you’re monitoring work e-mail so they can’t argue it was confidential

02/23/2011

Employers can read any e-mails sent using company-owned computers or other devices, as long as they inform employees they should have no expectation the communication is confidential. That’s true even of e-mails an employee sends to an attorney to discuss a potential lawsuit against the employer.

After NLRB ruling, can employees really trash you on Facebook?

02/21/2011

Don’t read too much into the recent foray by the NLRB into the brave new world of social media. Employees don’t receive a free pass on social media posts. They don’t have license to defame, disparage or otherwise trash their company, management, product or co-workers. Until the NLRB says otherwise, employers shouldn’t treat social media any differently than any other form of employee communications.

It’s time to ban texting while driving

02/21/2011

If you provide either cell phones or vehicles to your employees, lay down the law: No sending or reading text messages if you’re driving as part of your job. It’s illegal in 30 states.

Setting sound policies, following processes to a ‘T’ increase odds of winning in court

02/18/2011

Employers that follow their own disciplinary process—even in cases involving difficult employees—benefit if those employees sue. When courts see a reasonable disciplinary policy that is applied evenhandedly, they rarely second-guess an employer’s decision to fire an employee.

Disneyland goes out of way to accommodate Muslim dress

02/18/2011

It took a complaint to the EEOC, but Disneyland will allow a Muslim woman employed as an intern there to wear an Islamic head scarf. Disney worked with CAIR to come up with a clothing option that met the woman’s religious requirements and still satisfied the Walt Disney Company’s uniform guidelines.

Can workers use FMLA and sick leave back-to-back?

02/16/2011

Q. One of our employees thinks she will need about five months off for medical treatment. She wants to use her accumulated vacation and sick time and then go on FMLA leave. Do I have to allow this?

UBS amends its much-mocked 44-page dress code

02/16/2011

Swiss banking firm UBS attracted worldwide ridicule last month after media attention focused on its super-specific 44-page dress code. The company now says it will revise its standards with a pared-down list of priorities focused on “what is important to us.”

Office romance: Don’t ban it; manage it

02/15/2011

Valentine’s Day may have come and gone, but love might still linger in the air at your workplace. If so, watch out! When office romances sour, scorned lovers often turn to the courts to allege that a former lover was a sexual harasser. Here are three tips to help make sure Cupid’s arrow doesn’t harm your organization.

Employee out on FMLA leave? You can still insist on calling in

02/14/2011

Some employees think that once they are approved for FMLA leave, they don’t have to follow the same rules as other employees when they’re away from work. That’s not necessarily true. In fact, employers are free to create call-in policies that require employees who are going to be absent to phone daily—and they can include employees on FMLA leave in that policy.