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You don’t need to be a legal wizard to protect your business from costly employee disputes. Yet, you may be required to travel forward in time. Think of a situation two years from now where you are in a courtroom explaining why you fired a person. In this instance, what exactly happened doesn’t matter as much as how consistent you and your policies were.
Sounds intense? It should. But don’t worry. We’re not here to give you the same old advice. we’re going to dive into the real stuff, the employment law tips that smart employers swear by.
Every time you have a conversation with an employee, create a digital trail and store it in the cloud. Did you have a disciplinary chat? Don’t forget to ask someone to take notes or record the conversation. Have a script ready and make sure you don’t break any rules.
Any conversation could turn into evidence later. You can use Google Drive or even a basic spreadsheet to keep track of conversations as well as disputes in the workplace. It isn’t paranoid behavior. It’s just being cautious.
Create employee handbooks that read like a human being wrote them. Avoid sounding vague and robotic. The best way to create a handbook is to write something that sounds like your workplace actually looks.
Instead of saying “professional attire is required,” write: “Employees are required to wear close-toed shoes and avoid graphic slogans on clothing in front-facing roles.”
If you want to add a specific note on harassment and define actions that will not be tolerated include real-world examples that apply to your office culture. A great example would be inappropriate memes in Slack, off-hours texting, etc.
Employees are known to quickly digest what’s clear to them. They tend to challenge only that which is open to interpretation.
This may sound harsh but it is important to begin with the end in mind. If things end up going sideways with an employee, would you be able to justify letting them go? Here’s what you can build before you make an offer;
Almost all the dangerous legal risks come from middle managers. They tend to overshare, make verbal promises that they can’t back up, or handle complaints incorrectly. That isn’t entirely their fault. Often, they just haven’t been trained on what to say.
Every quarter, invest in a short scenario-based training for your managers. Try something like the following;
“An employee tells you they feel anxious around a coworker but does not want to file a complaint. What do you do?”
Training based on scenarios allows you to build a lot more legal awareness than any HR workshop ever will.
Create a mock legal disaster every quarter. Pretend something has gone horribly wrong and then ask yourself a few important questions.
Are there any policies no one is following?
Did any manager recently bend a rule?
Did someone use their PTO in a way the policy doesn’t cover?
Are there any unwritten rules that employees know but HR does not?
This exercise can act like a stress test for your company. You can fill in the small cracks before they turn into huge sinkholes for your business.
When someone quits, they tend to be much more honest. Pay close attention and if you hear the words “favoritism,” “micromanagement,” “burnout,” or “toxic comments” far too many times, try not to ignore them. They may turn into legal liabilities later.
Your exit interview form should always ask employees if they witnessed any unfair treatment or discrimination. This allows you to identify the patterns so you can work on it in the future.
After you are done writing company policies, make sure you hire an expert lawyer to go through them. Let them analyze it and find loopholes in it. After all, that’s what they’re trained to do.
An expert employment attorney can review your draft and give you the best suggestions to make it better. This critical review allows you to create a solid second draft that hits the bull’s eye!
