To say that I have not felt overly optimistic about our nation’s course over next four years would be a bit of an understatement. One area, however, about which I am very optimistic is the expected retooling of the National Labor Relations Board.
This week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Workforce Freedom Initiative published a comprehensive report outlining the areas of federal labor law that the NLRB must address to restore balance to the workplace.
Authorizing small groups of employees—or “micro unions”—to organize.
Restricting unions and employers from voluntarily agreeing to resolve unforeseen bargaining issues via “management rights” clauses.
Forcing employers to bargain with a union before the two parties even reach a first contract.
President Trump has already taken a step in the right direction, by naming Philip Miscimarra (a vocal and outspoken critic of his own agency over the past few years) as acting chair of the NLRB. While it will take time for Trump to turn the board over and appoint a majority of NLRB members, I am confident that by the end of his term in office, the landscape of our federal labor laws will look very different than it does now.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
Edward Prieto, the sheriff of Yolo County, California, likes to hug his co-workers … a lot. According to Victoria Zetwick, a county correctional office and the plaintiff in Zetwick v. County of Yolo (9th Cir. 2/23/17) [pdf], during the 12 years they worked together, Prieto hugged her hundreds of times.
Zetwick also claimed that during that same time frame, Prieto hugged several dozen other female employees, but never male employees.
Others, however, testified that Prieto also hugged men, just not as frequently as women. Zetwick alleged that a result she found it difficult to concentrate, and that she was constantly stressed and anxious about Prieto’s touching, which she believed had sexual overtones.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that a reasonable jury could conclude that Prieto’s hugs could create a sexually hostile work environment.
While it may appear that Prieto’s hugs were “common” in the workplace, and that some other cross gender hugging occurred, neither of those things demonstrates beyond dispute that Prieto’s hugging was within the scope of “ordinary workplace socializing.” A reasonable juror could find, for example, from the frequency of the hugs, that Prieto’s conduct was out of proportion to “ordinary workplace socializing” and had, instead, become abusive. …
So, employers, what’s the takeaway from this case? How about this: Hands off at work. Let’s not forget our common sense. Yes, hugs when excessive and unwelcome can create a hostile work environment.
If you have a close enough relationship with someone to greet with a hug, then hug it out. If someone complains about your hugs, stop. It’s just that simple.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
The HR tech space saw its first major deal of 2017 as Saba Software is acquiring Halogen Software. Illustration by Anna Jo Beck
While consolidation in the HR technology space isn’t much of a surprise anymore, Saba Software’s announced acquisition of Ottawa, Canada-based Halogen Software was a bit unexpected.
The deal, worth a reported $293 million, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017.
Though it’s certainly not on the scale of cloud-based talent management software blockbusters like 2012’s $1.9 billion Oracle-Taleo deal or 2011’s $3.4 billion SAP-SuccessFactors acquisition, this could be the next wave in smaller companies building broader HR technology suites.
The thinking could be that bigger indeed is better. According to a joint release, the deal “will extend Saba’s position as a leading provider of end-to-end SaaS talent management solutions. Combined, Saba and Halogen will serve more than 4,000 customers worldwide, and together, increase value to the customers they serve with the strength, size and scale to deliver rapid innovations in talent management.”
Saba’s expertise lies in the L&D space, while Halogen’s software focuses on performance management. Not surprisingly, the release noted that the deal combines learning and performance in a way not yet realized in the market.
“Saba has a clear vision for the future of talent development and understands the powerful role learning and engagement experiences play in driving individual and business performance,” said Pervez Qureshi, CEO of Saba, which was acquired by private equity firm Vector Capital in 2015. “Combining Saba’s unrivaled learning and engagement capabilities with the proven innovation Halogen brings to performance management, we expect to accelerate delivery against this vision and rapidly create new value for our joint customers. This strong foundation for growth and innovation and our combined expertise will enable Saba to meet the ever-changing workplace needs of people and help organizations more effectively adapt, perform and thrive.”
Michael Slaunwhite, executive chairman of Halogen, was equally as effusive of the deal. “We have built Halogen into a market leader in performance management by investing in the talented and innovative team that began here in Ottawa more than 20 years ago.I look forward to joining forces with Vector Capital and Saba. Together, we have the opportunity to scale faster and lead the way in performance, learning, and engagement and expand our global impact.”
Rick Bell is editorial director for Workforce. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.
Several years ago, Jonathan Webb was thinking about how “active design” could improve the workplace. He meant it as a way to describe restructuring a workspace to promote the people inside to adopt healthier habits.
Speaking to Webb about his company and what he does, it was interesting to keep this in mind. I thought of the workplace as a micro-version of a large city, one in which shifting the physical environment can impact health — in this case employee health rather than public health.
Webb is the vice president of workplace strategies at Green Bay, Wisconsin-based furniture manufacturer KI. He also advises clients that work with KI on changes they’d like to see in their workspaces.
“So many employers and workers lead sedentary lifestyles and spend so many waking hours, up to 60 percent, in a sedentary state. Commuting, sitting in a car and then sitting at offices during the day,” said Webb. “We started to look at office behaviors and what employees are doing and what organizations aren’t doing to push activity to foster inherent movement in the workplace.”
Sit-stand desks are a way to follow one of the nine principles, incorporating height adjustable work surfaces. Photo by Ellen Jaskol.
He recommends nine principals for implementing active design in a workspace, which includes subconsciously motivating people to take the stairs, offering healthy food options, making sunlight more accessible and seeing outdoor spaces as potential workspaces. A more open layout is something that could promote face-to-face communication and collaboration, he added.
The part about collaborative spaces was especially interesting to me because of a recent blog I read in The Washington Post. The writer argued that the open office trend had many flaws, including a lack of privacy and decreased productivity among employees who find the setup distracting. She also cited that she and her employees were more susceptible to getting sick.
The blog was from 2014, but it still contains criticisms of the open office environment that are legitimate today. Hearing Webb’s explanation of how the changing office environment is beneficial was valuable. It served as kind of a counter-argument in the apparently controversial world of office design.
He defended both the open office space and the use of outdoor spaces in one example I thought was particularly intriguing. The crux of the argument was that businesses are looking for design cues outside of business industries. One place they’re looking at are college campuses, in which students are productive in communal areas like libraries and cafeterias. They also make outdoor areas appealing for the use of students as an alternative. Students don’t have cubicles, and they’re always on the move because they have multiple places they can work.
Jonathan Webb
Personally, I liked this idea because I was one of the students who hopped from the art history library to the Wisconsin Historical Society to the courtyard to the student radio station lobby in one evening to finish up my assignments at the University of Wisconsin.
Organizations are figuring out ways to purposely design their outdoor spaces with Wi-Fi and the appropriate amenities or architectural elements to make them a viable workspace, Webb said.
“Taking design cues is a wonderful workplace strategy for organizations trying to attract and retain younger talent,” he added. “Because where has this talent been the last four to six years?” College campuses, often.
Finally, he had a solid example with a New York-based client that implemented surface-level changes to make a difference. The client wanted to subconsciously push employees to take the stairs more. Of course, legally, office spaces have to have staircases for fire-escape purposes; that doesn’t necessarily mean that the stairs are located where employees naturally gravitate. They might be more inclined to take an elevator just because it’s more in their eyesight or something like that.
This lounge encourages employees to have meetings on the go.
This client decided to entice employees to use the stairs rather than the elevators in a way that was in their means. Their office took about two or three floors of the building, and their staircase was in the back corner of the space. They made the general area more appealing by removing a set of heavy doors, repainting the hallways, adding some wall graphics and adding brighter lights. They included informational posters on nearby walls telling employees how many extra calories they’d burn by taking the stairs.
“They don’t necessarily have to be really expensive strategies,” said Webb.
These principles are important, he said, because just offering a wellness program to promote health is oftentimes not enough. Many employees don’t participate.
“The bottom line is that if you are a sedentary person by nature, you are bound to remain sedentary even if formal workplace wellness programs are being offered,” said Webb. “That’s a big deal. Unless [a company does] things that inherently promote activity during the course of the day, a majority of people are not going to move.”
Web: Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below, or email at aburjek@humancapitalmedia.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at@workforcenews.
Late Feb. 15, news broke that Andy Puzder, Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of labor, had withdrawn his name from consideration, just one day before his oft-postponed confirmation hearing was to take place.
Like Trump’s immigration ban, opposing Puzder’s nomination was not a political issue, but a right/wrong issue. Had I had the chance to ask Andy Puzder a question during his confirmation hearing, I would have asked the following:
Can you reconcile your potential position as the head of the federal department that regulates the relationship between employers and employees, and your statements about the sexually based advertisements your restaurants ran under your tutelage as CEO, such as, “I like our ads. I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think it’s very American. I used to hear, brands take on the personality of the CEO. … I think this one, in this case, it kind of did take on my personality.”? How can you assure women that your “personality” will not interfere with their ability to be treated equally in the workplace, and be paid the same wage for the same work as their male counterparts?
According to NBC News, while Democrats staunchly opposed Puzder’s nomination because of his opposition to raising the minimum wage, in addition to his restaurants’ racy ads, it was ultimately Senate Republicans that killed the nomination.
Some conservatives have also taken issue with Puzder’s immigration stance, saying it is at odds with Trump. His family also employed an undocumented worker as a housekeeper, though Puzder said he was unaware she was in the country illegally.
Personal issues also complicated the restaurant executives nomination. Puzder went through a messy divorce and his ex-wife made allegations of domestic abuse that were later recanted.
As I’ve said previously, someone who espouses Puzder’s view of women has no business directing our nation’s labor policy. While I agree with his view on other labor issues, such as minimum wage, overtime, and joint employment, there must be someone else qualified who lacks Puzder’s sexist baggage. Hopefully President Trump will allow us to discover who that person is.
It’s important for businesses to understand the different types of wage garnishments and learn ways to accurately and efficiently process them.
Proper management of wage garnishment can be especially crucial to growing businesses because as their hiring increases, they may also be inadvertently increasing their garnishment liability. That’s why it’s important for an employer to remember four things can help appropriately and accurately process wage garnishments while remaining compliant.
1. All garnishments are not the same.
Here’s a basic wage withholding definition: When an employee fails to repay a debt, a wage withholding court order can be issued against the employee’s earnings to satisfy that debt. This court order — also called a wage garnishment — requires the employer to withhold a portion of the employee’s wages and forward them to a third party. Wage garnishment orders also can be issued by government agencies such as the IRS, state tax agencies and the U.S. Department of Education.
Simple, right? A business receives an order about one of its employees and refers it to its payroll department to process by withholding the appropriate wages and forwarding it to the proper recipient.
There are six common types of wage garnishment. They are:
Child support garnishment comprises by far the highest volume of orders employers process, and, while some of the laws are very standardized, the law can vary by state.
Creditor garnishments are debts that occur when a person is delinquent on consumer payments (e.g. credit card debt). The creditor may take the debtor to court and seek a wage withholding order for the outstanding debt.
Bankruptcy orders. Based on research from the American Bankruptcy Institute, 97 percent of all bankruptcies are personal filings rather than business filings.
Student loans may be collected by the U.S. Department of Education, which may contract with collection agencies to enforce and collect the defaulted loans.
Tax levy garnishments can be issued at the federal, state or local level. Each state differs in its requirements and those laws may differ from federal levies.
Wage assignment occurs when an employee voluntarily agrees to have money withheld from his or her wages. Wage assignments are governed by state law and do not involve a court order. Since they are voluntary and the employee specifies the amount to withhold, they do not fall under the requirements of the Federal Consumer Credit Protection Act.
It’s important that employers keep in mind the type of debt owed, the party collecting it, and the laws applicable to that debt. Knowing which laws, rules, and regulations apply and keeping current on them when processing wage garnishments can be challenging for employers, and, if done incorrectly, may expose employers to various liabilities and penalties.
In addition, the six types of wage garnishments noted above are the most common wage garnishments; employers may receive other less common types of wage garnishments. It’s the employer’s responsibility to comply with and make sure all orders are processed in a timely manner and correctly whether or not they are familiar.
2. Wage garnishment can affect employee productivity and morale.
Most employers recognize that wage garnishment has a direct impact on employees. However, this impact can extend beyond their paychecks. Processing garnishments is not as straightforward as simply withholding wages from an employee’s paycheck and sending a payment. The process is far from simple and can be complicated by myriad emotions.
Employees often find it humiliating because the courts have intervened and employers have become involved in their private struggles.
Employees in this position may feel that they’re now working for the institutions to which they’re indebted rather than for themselves and their futures. Stress and anxiety are often natural extensions of the garnishment process.
An affected employee’s anxiety could show itself through decreased productivity or a lack of motivation. Employers can help affected employees and potentially decrease future garnishments by providing financial wellness training and counseling, as well as tax education, to help employees manage debt.
3. Wage garnishment can affect an employer’s finances and business efficiency.
Employees aren’t the only ones affected by wage garnishment. Employers expose themselves to financial and legal risk when they incorrectly garnish an employee’s wages, fail to file in a timely way, file a defective response, fail to follow specific requirements when sending payments, or make other missteps with a garnishment. Mishandling a garnishment can lead to a judgment against the employer for the entire amount of the employee’s debt, a lawsuit from the creditor or the employee, or other costs or penalties that the employer didn’t anticipate or budget for.
In the instance of garnishments for child support, employers could potentially feel the impact of laws designed to restrict travel. For instance, the Social Security Act was amended in 1997 with a sub-section that established the denial, revocation, or restriction of U.S. passports if the non-custodial parent has child support arrears of $2,500 or more. Additionally, some state agencies have the authority to deny or revoke drivers’ and professional licenses for past-due child support obligations.
If your business requires employees to travel internationally or employs drivers, these laws could impact an employee’s ability to do his or her job effectively and, by extension, impact the efficiency of your business.
Another current area of focus that could impact employers is in the creditor garnishment arena. Currently, the American Payroll Association is working with the Uniform Law Commission to establish a standardized processing for creditor garnishments through the Uniform Wage Garnishment Act, which proposes to standardize the wage-garnishment process for employers, employees and creditors. Currently, state laws differ significantly in their requirements regarding wage garnishment, from the beginning to the end of the garnishment, and are often outdated. This means businesses that operate in multiple states must identify and abide by these different legal requirements, which can potentially lead to processing errors, confusion, inefficiency and noncompliance.
Companies can help manage these challenges if they become familiar with garnishment laws and guidance from agencies such as the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, develop reliable and timely procedures for garnishment processing and ensure that policies are administered fairly for all employees facing a wage garnishment.
It may be useful to develop tools, resources and strong contacts with agencies, courts and garnishors. Staying close to these agencies may help your business remain aware of major changes to wage garnishment laws.
Consider participating in state and federally initiated pilot projects. These programs are valuable opportunities to positively build relationships, influence initiatives and provide needed feedback. Make sure you have established a way to monitor legislation that could affect garnishment processing.
Other steps an employer can take include participating with committees, attending conferences regarding wage withholding, and leveraging other contacts you’ve developed with the agencies, those imposing wage garnishments, or other employers.
4. Paper processing is the not the only option.
A study by the ADP Research Institute revealed that 7.2 percent of employees had wages garnished in 2013. Keeping pace with the proper and timely processing of wage garnishments is challenging for many businesses.
As wage garnishment volumes and laws intensify, garnishment processors have the option to use electronic funds transfer, or EFT, to save time, increase efficiency, streamline processes and potentially reduce costs.
Currently, virtually every child support state agency has the ability to accept child support payments via EFT, and some have even mandated employers to send payments electronically. Some tax levy agencies, trustees and student loan agencies also are implementing electronic payment capabilities. In addition to business efficiencies, EFT enables greater security of personally identifiable information, such as Social Security numbers.
Minnesota has passed legislation requiring employers to electronically file their response to a state tax garnishment summons with the state tax agency, and Wayne County Court in Michigan is piloting the option of electronic responses.
Electronic income withholding orders are already very popular. These enable states to electronically distribute income withholding orders and employers to electronically accept or reject them.
Clearly, wage garnishment can have a profound effect on the employee who is being garnished, as well as the employer who must implement the garnishment. It’s important for businesses of all sizes to understand the different types of wage garnishment, familiarize themselves with the laws governing them, and learn ways to accurately and efficiently process them.
Using best practices can help streamline an employer’s responsibilities and ease the potential anxiety an employee may feel with this sometimes-necessary workforce issue.
Julie Farraj is vice president of Garnishment Services for ADP Added Value Services. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.
Originally from Ukraine, Michael was born without arms as a result of birth defects resulting from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. He rides a modified bike designed specifically for him and his disability. He is extraordinarily inspirational.
Trimble’s main form of transportation is a specially designed bicycle with handlebars that extend to his right shoulder and the stump of his left arm. Every day, he bicycled the miles from his home in Gresham to Kroger’s main offices in southeast Portland.
Two months into his assignment, Trimble had racked up numerous positive performance reviews and the second-highest performance score in his office. But a manager in Kroger’s loss prevention office called to complain about his habit of bringing his bicycle in through the building’s front door, and asked him to carry it up the back stairs.
Trimble says he explained the obvious: That he can’t carry his bike up a flight of stairs because he doesn’t have arms.
The manager relented, but said Trimble had to walk his bike through an outdoor courtyard. Again, Trimble said he could not do that because he doesn’t have arms.
“Can’t you just push your bike?” a supervisor asked him.
“How can I push my bike?” he responded. “I don’t have any arms.”
On March 24, 2016, Trimble says, he received two glowing performance audits. But the next day Kroger fired him for refusing to push his bike through the courtyard.
Last week, Trimble filed a disability-discrimination lawsuit against Kroger.
Firing an employee who must ride his bike across your courtyard instead of pushing it because he lacks armsnot only induces cringes of disgust but also earns you a nomination as the Worst Employer of 2017.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
When an organization commits to creating a more diverse workforce and inclusive environment, one common criticism is that doing so causes divisiveness and unnecessary friction. This criticism can be expressed directly or it can manifest as an undercurrent of unstated resistance.
Similar resistance often shows up in response to conversations about race. It often stems from the belief that discussions about race and racism cause problems that didn’t exist before, because racism today is created or perpetuated by those who talk about it.
These criticisms are false. Most people who hold such ideas are well intended, but make the mistaken assumption that if something doesn’t exist for them, it doesn’t exist at all. What’s odd is this error of logic doesn’t apply to most other areas of work life. Humans are remarkable in our ability to communicate new, complex information to other humans, then record that information for future generations. This process has helped us survive hostile habitats and evolve rapidly, since (ideally) we don’t have to waste time relearning knowledge gained by our ancestors.
Our curiosity and openness to new information has been crucial to this evolution. Tens of thousands of years ago, if a homo sapiens told another homo sapiens where they’d discovered a food source and the recipient of the information said, “Nah, I don’t see that, therefore it doesn’t exist,” our species would have died out long ago.
Likewise, if a friend told you about a great new restaurant and you replied, “Nah, I don’t know about that, therefore it must not exist,” you’d look silly and miss out on an excellent meal. You’d also come across as a pretty arrogant son of a gun. The other person would never recommend a restaurant to you again.
Missing out on tasty food is no big deal. But what if the information offered is a big deal? What if the information will help solve a problem, avoid a problem or get ahead of a problem? We then ignore the information at our own peril. Examples abound in organizations, industry, and even our economy, from Deepwater Horizon to the 2008 financial crisis to Donald Trump’s presidential win.
Ignoring information we don’t have, that another person is providing, isn’t only arrogant, it’s stupid. It’s bad business, poor leadership and ineffective decision making. So why do we brush off people of color, women, millennials, LGBTQ, those with disabilities and even hard data when they tell us there’s a need for more diversity or inclusiveness? Or when they say they experience prejudice or unfair barriers that disrupt their effectiveness?
Dismissing these gifts of information outright as unimportant, imagined or false is the definition of bigotry and a symptom of the very problem at hand. It’s also dangerously short-sighted and misguided. This information isn’t the cause of divisiveness, it’s a symptom of existing divisions. It isn’t the noxious gas in the coal mine, it’s the canary.
The business case for diversity is clear, robust and data-driven; years of evidence show diversity plus inclusiveness gets better results and diverse teams out perform individuals, non-diverse teams and even a group of the best. The best and the brightest want to work in environments that support their brilliance and excellence, where they can contribute their gifts for collective benefit.
Their perceptions and experiences are among the gifts they bring. If the problems and solutions they uncover aren’t taken seriously and addressed in a meaningful way, they — especially millennials — vote with their feet.
When someone brings up race or racism, or champions diversity and inclusiveness, the best response expresses the same curiosity, trust and commitment to creative action that helped our ancestors survive. The divisions and problems were there before someone brought them to your attention. Talking about them, exploring their impact and taking action to solve the problem may be uncomfortable, but since when has discomfort been sufficient reason to dismiss business-critical information? No leader is expected to know everything; that’s why they have a team. Surely effective leaders who expect to lead thriving organizations in the 21st century have the strength and resilience to hear surprising, even inconvenient truths.
Those that cannot, or will not hear these truths — dismissing them on their face as divisive — do so at their peril. Not only will their results suffer, so will their bottom line.
Those of you who saw the popular 1996 film “A Thin Line Between Love and Hate” starring Martin Lawrence and Lynn Whitfield will recognize the title reference. It was also a song by The Persuaders.
I’m going to dig into the line between business and politics, but the love and hate bit works too because to feel one or the other requires passion, and good business and good politics are often quite passionate. It makes me shake my head when people argue that a publication like Workforce should refrain from political commentary. Essentially, some readers are saying, stay in your lane; politics has nothing to do with business.
I wholeheartedly disagree.
I’ve used the “stay in your lane” line before when someone uninformed ran off at the mouth publicly about a topic where I felt they lacked key understanding. Not because the ignorant can’t have an opinion, but because I don’t feel the ignorant have the right to attack others’ right to have an opinion, especially when that opinion is defensible and appropriate.
Take my fellow Workforce blogger Jon Hyman, who caught a lot of heat recently when he blogged about that person’s — I’ll remind you that I will not deliberately speak or write his name, but you know him. He lives in former President Obama’s old house — travel ban, a ban which the courts effectively squashed last week.
The comments were hot. Most I ignored, but this one stuck out: “Just for the record, I do not think that an employment law blog is the appropriate place for this type of political rant.”
Again, I disagree.
A legal blog devoted to workforce issues is exactly the right place to discuss the leader of the free world issuing a blanket order to prevent “other” people — most of them working people — from entering this country. Hyman chose to take a moral stance, but morality aside — that felt really weird to type — that person’s travel ban affected companies worldwide, as their employees were stalled in airports, unable to do their jobs, many traumatized with worry as they were detained and separated from loved ones.
You cannot separate business and politics, not entirely. Aside from things like immigration laws that impact H-1B visas and the EEOC, which routinely takes businesses to task for discriminatory practices that violate laws or legal precedents, there’s too much influential hand washing and wheeling and backroom dealing that takes place for the two to be mutually exclusive. Things the general public doesn’t always hear about until stocks are falling, buyouts are in the works or mergers are reported.
Then, consider, a company’s public perception, its brand reputation, its ability to recruit the best talent; all of these things can be egregiously impacted by its leader’s politics. Sports apparel company Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank found that out after top spokespeople like ballerina Misty Copeland and basketball player Stephen Curry showed their concern for his public support of the president on CNBC’s Fast Money Halftime Report on Tuesday. Plank “praised Trump as a “pro-business president.”
Plank is at the helm of a successful, globally recognizable “Athleisure” brands out right now, and he sees the connections between business and politics. Remember me talking about passion? In his CNBC comments he used that word too, along with growth and a desire to build things, and let’s not forget the talent, the people. Plank also found out about the other thing that connects business and politics — the eggs the public will throw at a leader’s head, regardless of what side of the fence he rests, if people disagree with him.
I’m no expert on either business or politics. But there is no doubt in my mind that the two are connected. The line separating them is paper thin. I’d even go so far as to say it’s arbitrary.
I was riding in the elevator earlier this week when I learned that Starbucks offered free legal advice to employees affected by the travel ban. I don’t drink coffee that often, but I’m still planning to go to a shop and buy something to show my support for that brand. Then, ride-sharing company Lyft pledged $1 million to the ACLU. However unspoken, are these not political statements made by prominent businesses? These are also some of the same facts that Hyman detailed in his blog.
Trying to disassociate politics from business is like trying to separate people from discussions of diversity and inclusion. You could do it, but how ridiculous would you look in the process?
When a politician takes a stance that others do not agree with, a stance that actively harms either a business or a group of people who could contribute to business in some way, it is our right — even in the media, especially in the media — to speak up, whether your name is Plank or Hyman or whomever. Whether they are in the White House or in a corner office on a high floor, at the end of the day, business and political leaders are accountable to us — consumers and voters. They need to act accordingly.
Kellye Whitney is associate editorial director for Workforce magazine. Comment below or email editor@workforce.com.
Watch this, and then let’s talk about the word fair:
. Like Louie in the clip above, I tell my kids this all the time. “Why can’t I stay up an extra half-hour? She’s not in bed yet.” “Because it’s time to go to bed. Tomorrow’s a school day.” “But it’s not fair.” “Why can’t I have ice cream, too? He had ice cream.” “Because you weren’t with us; you were doing something else.” “But it’s not fair.” Life is not designed to be fair. Tough lesson for a kid. Heck, it’s a tough lesson for an adult, too.
Must the workplace be fair? What does the word “fair” even mean at work? Nothing in the law requires the workplace to be fair. It only requires that you treat similarly situated people of different protected groups similarly. Equality across protected classes, however, is not the same as fairness.
Consider the following, which I read on HRhero.com:
Most adults have internalized a sense of fair play that we learned as small children. And when a situation is unfair, we feel there should be some accounting for it. Conversely, research indicates that if an individual feels that he has been treated with kindness, respect, and honesty, he is less likely to file a civil lawsuit. As a result, you should place a premium on good communication and fairness in your terminations.
There are exceptions to every rule. But, in general, a good termination should be foreseeable. If the termination is the result of ongoing performance problems, there should be a history of meetings and written documentation of the problems. No employee should find out that her performance is unsatisfactory for the first time at a termination meeting.
If society expects fairness, unfairness begets lawsuits, and members of the same fairness-expecting society will comprise the judges and juries that will decide the legality of your terminations, then some basis of fundamental fairness should ground your terminations.
What does fundamental fairness in the workplace look like?
Don’t ambush your employees. They should understand why they being fired via prior discussions, prior performance reviews, and prior discipline.
The punishment must fit the crime. Do you really need to fire the employee who is late for work occasionally? Maybe, if he or she has been repeatedly warned. But the first time? If the punishment far exceeds the misconduct, the employee will look for a reason for the mistreatment and unfairness, such as race, sex, age, or disability. Do not provide an impetus to look past the stated reason. Alternatively, a sufficiently serious offense (e.g., sexual harassment, theft, violence) may support a termination on the spot. Otherwise, however, employees should have an ample and bona fide opportunity to correct their misbehavior.
Have documentation to support your decision. Do you have a performance review, written warning, or other contemporaneous note in a personnel file to support your decision? If not, it’s best to wait until you do. And, no, this is not an excuse to create a paper trail after the fact. Documentation should be contemporaneous to the misconduct.
Be consistent. Do you handle similar disciplinary problems similarly and to the same degree? If not, those that suffer the worst will ask why, and they may do it via their attorney in a lawsuit.
To make this concept of workplace fairness even simpler, do unto your employees as you would have your employer do unto you. If you treat your employees as you would want to treated (or as you would want your wife, kids, parents, etc. to be treated), most employment cases would never be filed, and most that are filed would end in the employer’s favor. Juries are comprised of many more employees than employers, and if jurors feel that the plaintiff was treated the same way the jurors would want to be treated (i.e., fairly), the jury will be much less likely to find in the employee’s favor.
And that result would be way better than fair.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
