Management’s Workplace Blog – Information and Insights for Employers
You know how it goes. You have an employee with issues – performance, health, whatever. The relationship with the employee starts deteriorating. Now the employee wants his lawyer to be involved in any further discussions. What do you do?
As a general matter, an employee doesn’t have a right to bring his attorney to work. …
In our troubled economic times, many employers have focused on making their workforce leaner and more efficient. This frequently involves raising performance standards for employees. But it is important to do so in a thoughtful and legally defensible way.
An illustration of this point can be found in the case of Dupont v. Allina Health …
Given all the emphasis on employees’ rights under various laws, employers are sometimes confused about their own rights. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a perfect example. Under the ADA, employers are required to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities in order to enable them to perform the essential functions of their jobs. …
For a labor law attorney like myself, today is Christmas morning at the Supreme Court. In contrast to most labor law cases which reach the High Court and usually involve procedural and/or constitutional issues and labor law itself is only a side show (like Noel Canning later this term), the case at 1 First Street …
So many of my clients are dealing with Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) abuse by various bad apple employees. I really feel their frustration because, as many of you know, it is really challenging to address FMLA abuse effectively given the law’s broad protections for employees. So it’s nice when, every once in a…
I often say (only somewhat flippantly) that we are all disabled, but the newly released fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) seems to really go out of its way to make that point. The DSM-5, which is produced by the American Psychiatric Association, serves as the authoritative guide on…
Family and Medical Leave Act compliance can be one of the more challenging tasks employers face. Some employers attempt to avoid the headache of FMLA administration by hiring a third-party administrator. But employers beware (!) – outsourcing will not solve all FMLA problems. An employer still needs to make sure it knows what is happening…
I like the EEOC – I really do. They do important work, and most of the time they seem to get it right. But every once in a while they dig in their heels over something patently ridiculous, leaving employers and management attorneys like me tearing out our hair in frustration. So there’s no small…
The topic of misclassification of employees as independent contractors is one that is getting a lot of attention from government agencies at the state and federal level. Some commentators have suggested that as long as an individual has set up a corporation, through which he/she is paid for his/her services, that individual will safely be…
What should a company consider in deciding whether to engage in electronic workplace monitoring of employees?
Companies, concerned with the abuse of workplace technologies, are increasingly considering electronic monitoring programs. Motivating considerations include the prospect of liability for sexual harassment lawsuits arising from inappropriate emails or web site usage, concerns about employee transfers of proprietary…
