Stop thief!  A cry on the subway?  A call for help on a crowded sidewalk?  A homeowner’s shout to neighbors?  Or a frustrating demand from human resources?
Employee theft is nothing new.  It’s just bigger than ever.  I’ve seen estimates that employers in the U.S. lose anywhere from $4 billion to $40 billion per year to […]

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Title VII requires an employer to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs unless it causes the employer an undue hardship.  Sometimes, an accommodation is possible.  Sometimes, it’s not.  But the employer must always consider whether it’s possible.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals provides some guidance on the concept of religious accommodation in Sturgill v. United Parcel […]

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A few months ago, I did a post about an intern who had lost her student teaching position and was denied her teaching credentials because she had posted some objectionable pictures on her MySpace page.  As I noted at the time, Internet privacy is a hot employment law issue, and situations like this aren’t going away.  If anything, they’re […]

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I suppose the first kind of workplace violence was the old-fashioned workplace fight.  Fights still happen at work.  Sometimes, they involve some pushing and shoving.  Sometimes, blows are thrown and landed.  Fights obviously aren’t what you want going on at work–ever.
Almost all employers have rules against fighting on the job.  If you have a handbook, it’ll be in the handbook.  […]

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Perhaps had the CIA’s use of waterboarding not been in the news, the waterboarding employment case out of Utah would have never seen the light of day.  But, of course, there’s plenty of light.  (Click here and here for previous posts.)
One thing I’ve failed to point out previously is that the lastest question in this […]

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I did a post on this earlier.  It’s back in the news, as the lawsuit filed by the employee who was waterboarded during a team-building exercise is proceeding.  It appears the employer intends to mount a vigorous defense.
Workplace trainers everywhere are watching this case with intense interest.  If the employer wins, it could open the […]

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This blog has contained numerous posts about documentation, an important part of almost every aspect of employment.
But is it possible to overdocument?  In a word, yes.  How so?
Documenting insignificant or trivial matters–If you do this, it makes all your documentation questionable.  Documentation is for important stuff.  If you throw in everything, a court is likely to think about throwing it all […]

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Are you kidding?  You’re not suggesting that I consider ditching something that’s as old as hiring and firing?  Yep.
Don’t have performance reviews if:
–They aren’t honest about employees’ deficiencies and designed to help them improve their performance.
–They aren’t given timely.
–They aren’t consistently given to all employees.
–They don’t cover the entire review period (not just the last […]

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To follow up on the immediately preceding post, click here for more on the problem of bullying in the workplace, including the proposition that bullying can have more negative effects on employees than unlawful harassment.

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Across the country, state legislatures are considering so-called bullying legislation for the workplace.  Under most state laws, if bullying is based on one of the protected classes (race, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability or some other protected class under state law), this would amount to unlawful harassment.  If it’s just regular bullying, it’s not unlawful, […]

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