Your employee alleges discrimination or harassment, or conduct that s/he believes is otherwise illegal. Most of you know that you shouldn’t fire the employee or take some other adverse action in response. I’ve posted about that here. That’s retaliation, and it’s illegal. In a discrimination case, you could pay big bucks for both the discrimination […]
What We Can Learn from Discrimination Claims Against Uber…
Last week we began focusing on Uber, and its recent legal woes. You can find that post here. I touched on four key areas. Let’s focus on the first one, discrimination, harassment and retaliation claims. While I’ve written about these issues before, apparently there are still enough employers who could stand to learn to appreciate the […]
Your Employee’s on a Performance Improvement Plan–and S/he Sued???
Suppose you are a Department Head at Larger-than-Life Sciences, Inc. Rhonda the Researcher is one of your direct reports. Rhonda is just not performing well at her job. In fact, you are not sure she is really qualified. Your annual performance review showed serious problems. You then put Rhonda on a Performance Improvement Plan. Rhonda […]
What Happens When You Mix FMLA (and ADA) and Retaliation?
I don’t encounter many employers that don’t have some type of issue with employee leave–especially when an employee may be eligible for more than one type of leave (e.g. FMLA, ADA, workers’ comp). Then there’s the possibility of retaliation claims. You may have thought that only applied to discrimination claims. Guess what? It also applies […]
How The EEOC Says You Can Steer Clear of Retaliation Claims
We’ve already talked about how the EEOC defines the different elements of a retaliation claim. While the Enforcement Guidance offers some clarification, it also defines those elements very broadly. Many feel that the Enforcement Guidance makes it harder (but it is not impossible) for employers to impose legitimate disciplinary measures on employees who may be […]