Workplace Culture – Page 12

December 4, 2018June 29, 2023

Forced Hugs at Work Sound Like a REALLY Bad Idea

Ray Kelvin, CEO of UK fashion retailer Ted Baker, is a hugger.

According to an online petition seeking to end his practice, “he greets many people he meets with a hug, be it a shareholder, investor, supplier, partner, customer or colleague.”

And, it doesn’t stop with hugs. He asks young female employees “to sit on his knee, cuddle him, or let him massage their ears.” He strokes employees’ ears. He takes off his shirt in the workplace and talks about his sex life. Even worse, when employees go to HR to complain, they are told, “That’s just what Ray’s like.”

Well, they’ve had enough “of what Ray’s like.” More than 2,600 people, including over 300 current or former employees, have signed the online petition calling on Ted Baker to “scrap the forced ‘hugs’ and end harassment.”

Let’s deal with low-hanging fruit first. Stroking employees’ ears, talking about your sex life and walking around work shirtless are all creepy and wrong. Period. And, no, HR cannot pass it off as, “Well, you know Ray… 😉”

The employer has an absolute duty to investigate and take corrective action to ensure that the harassment stops. And the fact that the alleged harasser is the CEO is not a justification to do nothing. In fact, if #MeToo has taught us anything, it’s reason to do more, not less.

As for the hugs, they are a symptom of the larger problem. In a vacuum they might be innocuous, but in this case they are a symptom of a deeper culture of harassment.

Indeed, one person’s hug is another’s creepy gesture or, worse, inappropriate advance. Where is the workplace line?

In the words of one court:

There are some forms of physical contact which, although unwelcome and uncomfortable for the person touched, are relatively minor. Cumulatively or in conjunction with other harassment, such acts might become sufficiently pervasive to support a hostile environment claim, but if few and far between they typically will not be severe enough to be actionable in and of themselves. A hand on the shoulder, a brief hug, or a peck on the cheek lie at this end of the spectrum. Even more intimate or more crude physical acts—a hand on the thigh, a kiss on the lips, a pinch of the buttocks—may be considered insufficiently abusive to be described as “severe” when they occur in isolation.

On one extreme you have this case, in which an employee was sexually caressed and hugged, and even had fingers poked in his anus through his clothing. Yet, on the other extreme, you have this case, in which a manager hugged a subordinate to lift his spirits during a rough work day.

So, employers, what’s the answer? How about some good old-fashioned common sense. 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.

December 1, 2018June 29, 2023

Taking Office Gossip Off the Lunch Menu

With millions of American workers eating lunch at their desks, in a car or not taking a lunch break at all, one startup is going all in to make lunchtime more engaging for its staff.

Nikki Sucevic, head of recruiting and training at online children’s clothier Mac & Mia, said the company provides lunch for four randomly chosen employees from different departments. There’s just one request of the staffers selected to go to lunch together: Do not talk about work at all; instead get to know each other.

“When you start to create bonds beyond work, you feel more empathy for your co-workers, and want to work harder for them,” Sucevic said.

Sucevic said her office hasn’t collected formal feedback on the program, which was implemented this fall. Anecdotally she noticed a more positive atmosphere in her workplace of 30 employees. Sucevic thinks lunching with colleagues can work for other companies as well.

“A lot of times, companies have happy hours or one-day events, and this is a quick Band-Aid,” Sucevic said. “Instead of doing one big thing now and then, we want to create a culture of this and start to make little adjustments every day. [Our] lunch lottery plan is one of our cultural shift plans to build relationships, empathy and cross-functional respect.”

Also read: A Desk for One for Lunch

According to a May 2018 survey conducted by workplace hygiene brand Tork, employees can have multiple reasons for not taking their lunch break. Nearly 20 percent of North American workers worry their bosses won’t think they are hardworking if they take regular lunch breaks, while 13 percent worry their co-workers will judge them. Some 38 percent of employees in the study also said they don’t feel encouraged to take a lunch break.

Making a lunch program with co-workers or even just eating with someone voluntarily can go a long way, said Laura Hamill, chief people officer at employee engagement company Limeade.

Also read: Give ’Em a Break: Employees Want Their Lunch Break Back

The Bellevue, Washington-based company, aside from sharing a similar program with Mac & Mia, has another program where they have new hires start their first day at lunch time and have a meal with their new co-workers. Hamill said this program has received exceptional feedback.

“I had someone who just started on my team and she wrote an email to me sometime this week and she said she felt like a welcomed part of the team and felt like she had another family now,” Hamill said.

Limeade’s marketing team wrote an article last year about the benefits that come from having lunch with co-workers. Those benefits include boosting productivity, building better relationships, making leaders more accessible and improving well-being.

“It’s about being a human being, not talking about work and learning what your co-workers are up to and what their lives are outside of work,” Hamill said. “It has to do with the idea of relationships. The more I think we get to know each other as human beings, we begin to trust each other more and understand the perspective people are bringing to work.”

David Chasanov is a Workforce editorial associate. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

November 28, 2018June 29, 2023

The 4 Keys to Being a Best-in-Class D&I Professional

“How can I do what you do?” asked a bright young woman on the phone one spring morning. She enthusiastically described how she’d studied and experienced various cultures and was inspired to do work that makes a difference.

She’d read some of my articles, saw me speak and felt a spark of connection. She wanted to turn her passion and values into a career, like I had. And because she was resourceful, she reached out for advice.

One of the joys of being a mid-career D&I professional is that I often get inquiries like this. One of the burdens, however, is providing a helpful response to new professionals facing a world that’s quite different from the early ’90s landscape I navigated, yet troublingly similar.

What’s different is our technology, our demographics, our polarized politics and a resurgence of overt white supremacy and bigoted violence. What’s the same is the lack of credibility many D&I professionals command relative to other professionals and organizational functions. I believe one of the reasons is insufficient rigor in developing the necessary skillset to garner results that matter and exude excellence.

Here are four keys that will equip D&I professionals at any career level to embody excellence and establish themselves as best-in-class D&I professionals, indispensable to those we serve.

Identify and live from your personal “business case.” I’m struck by D&I practitioners who have no substantive answer to the question: “Why do you do this work? (How do you benefit?)” “New school” D&I isn’t just about helping others. It’s about creating a world that works better for more of us and attaining meaningful results that matter. Best-in-class professionals work from their heart, mind and soul, and have personal skin in the game. Being grounded in the heart balances intellectual rigor, and adds depth, integrity and authenticity to our work. A personal business case provides motivation and inspiration when we’re weary. My personal business case is that from a very young age I experienced and witnessed firsthand how traits over which people have no control (sex, race, nationality and social class) can cause other people to treat them as less than they are, thwarting their happiness and ability to contribute.

A personal business case requires not just knowledge of self, but clarity of values and vision. I deeply value integrity, authenticity, excellence, connection and expression. My vision is a world where everyone has access to all the knowledge and resources necessary to live their happiest, healthiest life, contributing their brilliance for personal fulfillment and collective benefit. I stand for a world where we get out of each other’s way — and our own way.

Do your personal work. Having personal skin in the D&I game and caring about people means that the work can be emotionally triggering and exhausting. Those of us who are especially sensitive and empathic can experience second-hand trauma or be re-traumatized by interpersonal dynamics in a workshop or workplace. I’ve witnessed how a facilitator can injure workshop participants through ineffective behaviors driven by their unresolved anger or guilt. I’ve seen how leaders driving organizational D&I initiatives can subvert their own efforts through counterproductive behaviors stemming from exhaustion, mistrust or shame. Many of us who do D&I work do it because we (or a loved one) have been wounded in some way. Do not allow the impact of this important work to be diluted or tainted by you trying to resolve your personal pain through the work alone.

There’s a saying: “If you don’t heal what hurt you, you bleed on those who didn’t cut you.” While it’s true that if we all waited to tackle D&I work until we were fully healed that the work would never happen, it’s critical to be on a path of personal growth. Become intimately acquainted with (and honest about) your motivations, triggers, weaknesses and sore spots. Build keen self-awareness and be in ongoing curious dialogue with yourself about what’s going on with you and how you can develop. Build your emotional intelligence and resilience. If you’re a facilitator, hone your ability to self-manage, and develop a superpower around being present, relaxed and extremely attentive to the subtleties of human communication. Engage difficult questions — in the classroom and the field — with curiosity and courage. Establish healthy boundaries in all areas of life, practice radical self-care, and invest in your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness. And forgive yourself for your shortcomings and bad days!

Be highly competent in multiple areas of D&I. D&I professionals who seek to be expert trusted advisers should be able to effectively answer a broad array of “diversity” questions. At the very least, you should have sophisticated knowledge about the history, terminology and practical applications of: (1) race/ethnicity (including racism), (2) sex and gender (including sexism), (3) LGBTQQIA+, (4) disability, and (5) major local racial/ethnic/cultural groups (in the U.S.: African Americans, Latinos/Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans). You must also be well-informed about the growing body of research establishing the organizational business case for diversity and the myriad tangible benefits of inclusion. You should know the basics of the latest brain science that impacts our current understanding of bias and interpersonal communication. You should read widely, listen to podcasts, attend conferences and lectures and stay informed about local and global current events. As a bonus, become familiar with the decades of theory and knowledge amassed in intercultural communication, a field similar to D&I.

Be highly competent in an area outside of D&I. Best-in-class D&I professionals are well-versed in at least one additional area outside D&I, such as organization development, leadership development, human resources, professional coaching, training facilitation/design, adult learning, assessment, business administration or international management. Many have first-hand leadership experience, have worked abroad, and/or speak more than one language. These skills equip the D&I consultant to accurately assess a client’s current state, identify strategic opportunities, and make impactful recommendations (read this article for more guidelines for consultants). They also equip the D&I facilitator to establish credibility, better understand their workshop participants and serve them where they are.

“Some think my standards are too high,” I told my caller that morning. “It’s true these are high expectations,” I added, “but they’re not unreasonable.” No one says the professional standards set for attorneys or accountants are too high, and we’re just as necessary. Expecting anything less than these four keys from D&I professionals is to diminish the quality of our expertise and its crucial importance to the success of organizations and the societies they shape and inhabit.

November 23, 2018June 29, 2023

Kronos CEO Aron Ain Urges Companies to Inspire Employees With a Strong Workplace Culture

Aron Ain, the CEO of workforce management software company Kronos Inc., released his debut book, “WorkInspired: How to Build an Organization Where Everyone Loves to Work,” in October.

Ain discusses how prioritizing employees is beneficial for an entire company. Workforce Editorial Associate David Chasanov spoke with Ain and found out what workplace elements are most important to him as a leader.

Workforce: Where does building a workplace culture begin? Is it at the top, or is it employee-centric?

Aron Ain: At the top. If the CEO and leadership don’t believe, encourage or support [workplace culture], it’s not effective. [At Kronos], if people know it’s important to me, people take it seriously. There’s safety in making sure employees are looked after and encouraged to have the right balance in their life. There’s safety in giving active feedback about how we can do better. I can’t imagine you would have great engagement in your company if people at the top don’t believe in that deeply.

WF: The old saying about employee turnover is that “employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers,” do you believe that to be true and how do you prevent that from happening at Kronos?

Ain: Absolutely true. People join companies because of the company. They leave because of who they work for. At Kronos we’re deeply focused on making sure all managers know their impact. Twice a year, our managers are rated by people on their team and how effective they are. It’s a manager effectiveness index (MEI). MEI holds managers accountable and improves their leadership, so we don’t have situations where great people leave because they’re not happy about who they work for.

WF: What’s your philosophy on performance reviews and how do they play into employee engagement?

Ain: I deeply believe in it. At Kronos, managers with the highest effectiveness index scores have the lowest turnover and highest engagement and [vice versa]. We make sure we do what’s necessary to create an environment where people are engaged. We try to hire above-average people. We want people who will make a difference. If you hire great people you need an environment where people are engaged, or else they will leave because they are great people.

WF: Is employee engagement all about the money?

Ain: Absolutely not. What’s most important to us is that the workplace should be a place where people have a great career opportunity, where they feel they have a great manager who respects them and helps them grow. It’s a place where they have confidence in the future, where they’re learning and growing, they enjoy their co-workers, people are making a difference with customers. If a place is a fun place to work but they’re working for a miserable manager, they’re out of here.

WF: What’s the difference between an established company and a startup?

Ain: An established company has various processes and functions in place to do a lot of the work. At a startup … you’re learning as you go. You don’t have time and resources to have a dedicated HR group, a group focused on legal aspects, financial services or marketing. You don’t have resources for training programs or creating a good environment. Not that you can’t, but it’s difficult.

WF: Are you a rah-rah leader or lead-by-example type of leader?

Ain: Both. I’m very communicative. I do video blogs all the time with employees, I talk to people all the time, I make sure when I’m walking through the halls or on the elevator that I don’t have my nose in my cellphone and I have my head up and I’m saying hello and talking to people. I visit Kronos offices around the world, and the first thing I do is go and say hello to everyone in the office. In India, where there’s about 1,000 people, it takes me a whole morning to go shake hands and say hello.

WF: What’s your favorite element to implement in making the workplace culture a fun community?

Ain: Having a great place where great people can come to work and enjoy what they’re doing. A place where they can also have balance in their lives. I love when I tell people that if the most important thing in their life is working for Kronos, they have their priorities mixed up. People get uncomfortable at first when they hear that, but then they end up believing in it because I keep repeating it to them.

WF: Kronos is located in the Boston area. Talk about major sports franchises in Boston and how they’ve built a culture in their organizations. What can people learn from them in terms of building a successful franchise?

Ain: I’m not super familiar with the inner workings of Boston franchises. But look at what the Patriots have done. From everything I can tell from a distance, they appear to have a focus on the end game. I appreciate most how they deal with difficult decisions actively. If they need to make personnel decisions, they do it. They don’t sit on things. I think we’re similar in that way.

WF: What is a common misconception in the business world right now?

Ain: The whole thing about what makes a company successful or what impact people have on making a company successful. People think having the magic product will make all the difference. The problem is you can’t deliver great products without great people. People say what comes first, the chicken or the egg, and in my world, what comes first is great people. It’s crystal clear. Once you have great people, you must work hard to do all the components to motivate people to want to stay.

November 15, 2018June 29, 2023

Handling the Workplace Holiday Rush

For some businesses beyond retail, the holiday season — November through February — is the busy season.

This means heavy workloads, tight deadlines and the need for collaborative teamwork more than ever as many companies are winding down. Research from my company’s research arm, the Limeade Institute, shows that burnout happens when employees have high stress but low well-being. So we’ve come together as a company to keep our people balanced, productive and healthy during this time.

Here’s what we found works best:

Reorganize annual events to alleviate employees’ schedules: Like most companies, we launched annual employee reviews at year-end. Now we’ve moved our annual reviews to February, so employees can approach them thoughtfully and reflect on all they’ve accomplished. We also pushed our holiday party to midyear so our employees can spend their time with family and friends. And while most companies send customers holiday gifts in December, we send gratitude gifts just before Thanksgiving.

Push for real PTO: We encourage employees to use their vacation time by year-end. In fact, our research shows those who take all of their vacation days are more engaged. Some employees prefer to take a long break just after the busy season. Because of this, we roll over up to 160 hours of PTO per year.

Support employee well-being: Throughout the busy season, we developed a Refresh Yourself campaign that promotes employee well-being — something often neglected when the pressure is on. We’ve offered chair massages, fruit-infused water, smoothies, yoga and meditation sessions, stretching stations, brain games and had the leadership team cook breakfast for employees. An optional office decorating contest and ugly sweater competition brings spirit to the office. In the meantime, remote employees receive care packages so they feel included and supported.

Help employees manage stress: Stress is inevitable during the busy season, so we help employees feel energized and motivated versus run-down or overwhelmed. We coach managers on how to help their team deal with stress and bring in guest speakers on how to stay positive in stressful times.

Our advice to those whose holiday rush ramps up during the holidays? Test new ideas, measure success and improve every year.

— Laura Hamill is chief people officer at Limeade and chief science officer of the Limeade Institute.

November 13, 2018June 29, 2023

Do You Know? English-only Workplace Policies

White Americans, what?
Nothing better to do?
Why don’t you kick yourself out?
You’re an immigrant too!

– White Stripes, Icky Thump (2007).

Estefany Martinez-Gonzalez and Imelda Lucio Lopez, both crew members at a McDonald’s restaurant in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and both Hispanic, claimed that their employer discriminated against them by requiring them to speak English at work (as opposed to their native Spanish).

In Martinez-Gonzalez v. Lakeshore Staffing (6th Cir. 11/9/18) [pdf], the appellate court disagreed.

Taking the record as a whole, no reasonable finder of fact could find that Lakeshore had a policy and culture of requiring its employees to speak only English. Lakeshore … filed seven declarations demonstrating that the so-called English-only policy could not exist because employees attested that they speak Spanish in the workplace or know of employees who openly speak Spanish in the workplace without reprimand. Martinez and Lopez do not contest either the factual veracity or the legal significance of the declarations. Instead, in support of their argument, Martinez and Lopez cite to two instances where Martinez stated she was told to speak English and one instance where Lopez testified she was told to speak English. Martinez and Lopez cite no disciplinary records in which they were reprimanded because they were speaking Spanish.

Thus, there was no evidence to support the existence of an English-only policy. That said, English-only policies certainly raise legal red flags.

As immigration and immigration reform continue to be hot-button political issues, employers take a big risk when they require all of their employees to speak only English at work.

The EEOC’s position is that a “rule requiring employees to speak only English at all times in the workplace is a burdensome term and condition of employment” and presumptively “violates Title VII.” According to the EEOC, an “employer may have a rule requiring that employees speak only in English at certain times where the employer can show that the rule is justified by business necessity.”

The majority of federal courts, however, have shown slightly more tolerance of “English-only” rules. Generally, courts will uphold an English-only rule if the employer can show a legitimate business justification for the requirement. Examples of legitimate business justifications that have been found to justify an English-only requirement are:

Stemming hostility among employees.
Fostering politeness to customers.
Promoting communication with customers, coworkers, or supervisors who only speak English.
Enabling employees to speak a common language to promote safety or enable cooperative work assignments.
Facilitating a supervisor’s ability monitor the performance of an employee.
Furthering interpersonal relations among employees.

Thus, employers should be careful to limit the reach of an English-only requirement only as far as is necessary to reach the articulated business rationale for the policy. For example, English-only requirements have been struck down as discriminatory where the policy included lunch hours, breaks and even private telephone conversations.

If you are considering an English-only requirement for your business, you should not do so without consulting with employment counsel to ensure that the policy is not discriminatory as written or as applied.

November 5, 2018June 29, 2023

How to Decide When to Make Political Statements in the Workplace

These days, particularly in the United States, it feels like the divided nature of our politics makes it almost impossible to keep from choosing sides.

Whether you’re a person, a business or a politician, you almost certainly know what you support and what you oppose. For organizations and their leaders, that means the more difficult issue often becomes whether to say anything publicly about what you support or oppose.

From a business perspective, the issue of whether to make political statements is critical — and it’s more complex and risky than ever. In the past, CEOs, boards or businesses that took some sort of activist stand used to be able to draw a fairly bright line between social activism and political activism.

Today those lines are far more blurred. Whether we’re talking about the #MeToo movement, education policy, health care, immigration or trade issues, these debates frequently fall into both the social and political spheres.

These are deep and roiling waters for business leaders who personally feel obligated to communicate which side they’re on regarding hot-button issues. Given that there are essentially no people in the middle, coming out on one side or the other comes with significant business risk.

If you’re a business leader who represents a brand and you’re considering taking a public stand on a social or political issue, you should first think very carefully about these three constituencies.

The first group you have to carefully consider when mulling a public political stand is your employees. And here’s the first big question to ask yourself: Is your stand consistent with your stated and lived corporate values, or do those values just represent those of the CEO or some portion of the C-suite? If your stand is consistent with your stated and lived corporate values, and they’re not just the personal musings of a company executive, then you’ve got a check in the go-forward box.

Next, ask yourself if your stand will alienate employees and exacerbate the line between people on both sides of the issue in a more public way than already exists. Think about whether some employees will leave, or if they’ll instead stay and be more committed. Or perhaps they’ll remain but as alienated employees with reduced engagement and performance across the board.

An organization’s public political or social stand can bring employees together or can tear them apart. It can also significantly affect your ability to attract talent, for better or worse, particularly when the economy is strong. You have to carefully measure these potential impacts before you step into the political arena.

Next, it’s absolutely vital to consider how your stand will affect your customer base. Start by considering whether your public position will be received negatively or positively by customers — and also whether it will make it harder or easier for loyal customers to do business with you. The reality is that your stand could grow or diminish your customer base, while also negatively or positively affecting your brand promise.

Remember that you’re representing a business. If you feel compelled to make a political stand, think through how it will affect your actual business, what will the stakeholders will think about that and how or whether they will support you in the long term.

Also read: How to Manage Emotions in a Post-Election Workplace

Finally, you have to weigh the impact of your action on your community. No organization exists in a vacuum, whether it’s a one-location business, has 20 locations around the country or is a global organization with hundreds of locations around the world. Consider how your stand will positively or negatively affect your standing in the communities in which you live and operate. Will the community be in agreement or will you alienate your community base?

Particularly if you’re a business with one or a handful of locations, you do business with other businesses in the community and you likely have relationships with policymakers. That means you have important relationships with the larger social environment in which you are living and working, and your business often relies on these connections in nontrivial ways. If your stand will make any of these harder, you need to think through truly what the ramifications are for that action.

When pondering a political stand, the bottom line is to remove the self from your decision and think only in terms of the business. If the stand you’re going to take will put your business at risk, put your employees’ jobs at risk or put your organization’s reputation at risk, then you need to think seriously about whether you’re willing to assume that risk.A

Also read: Talking Politics at Work Shouldn’t Be Taboo

That doesn’t mean you don’t ultimately take the stand. It just means you have to be knowledgeable about what the effects will be and have contingency plans in place. As business leaders, we have to think through the ramifications for our organizations and the people that make them — and not just for the CEO.

October 26, 2018June 29, 2023

Voting on the Clock Works as Employee Engagement Tool

While voting is an important right for Americans, some employees don’t get the chance to cast a ballot because of strict workplace attendance policies.

As the 2018 midterm elections near, employee engagement and recognition company O.C. Tanner asked more than 1,000 workers around the country about their organization’s rules concerning voting during standard office hours.

In the October 2018 study, 62 percent of participants said their company allows them the flexibility to vote during the workday, and 34 percent of survey participants said their company offers its employees paid time off to vote.

O.C. Tanner Institute Vice President Gary Beckstrand said the data proves that companies aren’t tremendously supportive of their employees voting.

“Organizations could do a better job at allowing their employees time off to vote and express their support of the activity,” Beckstrand said.

A significant finding was how employees who were given flexibility to vote during the workday reacted. Beckstrand said employees who are given the flexibility to vote are more positively engaged.

“Employees who feel that their employers care about their overall report well-being report high feelings of well-being,” Beckstrand said. “Allowing employees time to vote is a simple way to acknowledge and support social and emotional wellness.”

According to the study, 65 percent of people say they would recommend their company to a friend as a good place to work, as opposed to the 47 percent of respondents who can’t vote during work. Also, 69 percent of participants said they want to work for their current employer a year from now, contrasting from 48 percent of respondents who can’t vote during office hours.

A 2018 Society for Human Resource Management differs from the O.C. Tanner report, citing that 44 percent of companies give paid time off to vote. While benefits can come from accommodating an employee’s civic duty, employers may be considering employee productivity issues when it comes to allowing time on the clock to go to the polls.

Dean Carter, vice president of human resources and shared services at clothing company Patagonia, said employers can use voter flexibility to their advantage, regardless of financial ramifications.

“If citizenship and democracy are part of your values, then there is no greater way to show it than to make sure your employees have time off to vote,” Carter said. “This is why we’re proud to be part of the Time to Vote [campaign], which has more than 300 companies leading a nonpartisan effort to engage in democracy and increase voter turnout.”

Workers should make sure they know their voting rights.

Employee voting rights and restrictions vary by state. In Illinois, for example, employees are allowed up to two hours’ leave if their company’s hours begin less than two hours after polls open and end less than two hours before polls close. In Michigan, it is a misdemeanor for an employer to discharge or threaten to discharge in an attempt to influence employee’s vote, according to employment law firm Constangy’s Employer’s Guide to Employee Voting Rights.

David Chasanov is a Workforce editorial associate. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

October 24, 2018June 29, 2023

How Many N-bombs Does It Take to Create a Hostile Work Environment?

Smelter v. Southern Home Care Services (11th Cir. 9/24/18) answers the question, “How many N-bombs does it take to create an unlawful hostile work environment?”

So as not to bury the lede, the answer is one.

Brenda Smelter was the only African American working in her office at Southern Home Care Services. During her two months of employment, she alleged that she endured racist statements on a daily basis by Connie Raleigh, the office manager, and Catherine Smallwood, a customer service supervisor.

Smallwood called black men “lazy” and “the scum of the earth.”
Smallwood said that “black women ha[d] babies on welfare.”
Smallwood said that President Obama’s “big ears” made him “look like a monkey.”
Smallwood told Smelter that her hair made her look like a “mixed monkey” from the movie Planet of the Apes.
Raleigh described black people exiting a bus at a Wal-Mart store as looking like they were “chained together.”
Raleigh said that she wished she could “send them all back … to Africa.”

On the day of Smelter’s termination, she and Smallwood engaged in a verbal altercation over a schedule change, which ended when Smallwood allegedly “jumped up … in a rage” and said “get out of my office … you dumb black nigger.”

The court of appeals reversed the district court’s dismissal of Smelter’s hostile work environment claim. It held that in the “two months during which Smelter had endured racist comments on a daily basis” was sufficient to create a jury issue over the existence of hostile work environment. “The … comments Smelter endured in the office involved obvious racial slurs conveying highly offensive derogatory stereotypes of black people.”

Yet Smallwood’s lone use of the N-word, directed at Smelter, in and of itself and without more, would have sufficed:

A reasonable jury could conclude that the harassment was severe. Most severe of all and addressed directly to Smelter herself was Smallwood’s calling her a “dumb black nigger.” Implicitly acknowledging the egregiousness of this epithet, Southern Home argues that Smallwood’s “one-time use” of it was insufficient to establish severity as a matter of law. We strongly disagree. This Court has observed that the use of this word is particularly egregious when directed toward a person in an offensive or humiliating manner. Here, Smallwood did not simply use the epithet in Smelter’s presence; instead, she directed it at Smelter as a means of insulting her in the midst of an argument.

Smelter demonstrates a hostile work environment that no employee should endure and no employer should tolerate, period.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

October 22, 2018June 29, 2023

What You Need to Know About Your Office Lottery Pool

Late Friday afternoon (when the Mega Millions was only a mere billion dollars), I received a phone call from Brian Duffy, a reporter from our local CBS affiliate.

“We are doing a story on office lottery pools. Are you the right person for me to interview about some of the legal risks?”

Two hours later, he was in my living room with a camera person interviewing me.

“Everyone is your friend until you’re looking at a billion dollars, and all of a sudden, that kind of stuff goes out the window because people get motivated by greed,” I told him.

You can watch the rest of my thoughts here.

As for office lottery pools, the legal risks (if you are lucky enough to win) fall into two major categories.

1. An employee claims the winning ticket for him or herself.

For example, in 2009, Americo Lopez quit his job after discovering that one of the office pool Mega Millions tickets he was holding won the $38.5 million jackpot. When his co-workers learned of his deception, they sued, and each collected their share of the jackpot.

2. An absent employee was not able to participate.

For example, in 2011, Edward Hairston sued his Youngstown cabinet-company coworkers, claiming they froze him out of their $99 million payout. His lawsuit claimed that he had participated in the office lottery pool for eight years, and his co-workers failed to cover his ante while he absent with a back injury. The parties reached a confidential settlement.

So, what can you do to mitigate these risks in your office pool?

The best, and safest course of action, is to draw up a written contract for each member of the office pool to sign. That said, as I pointed out during my interview, these are exceedingly rare.

Still, there are less formal measures you can take to limit risk:

Appoint one person to act as the point for collecting money, purchasing tickets and acting as custodian.
Collect all money up front before buying tickets, and only buy as many tickets as you have cash collected.
Keep a list of who has contributed to the pool, and if you want to be extra cautious, have each participant sign something evidencing their participation.
Distribute copies of the purchased tickets to all participants prior to the drawing, so that there is no dispute between a pool ticket and a personal ticket.

And, as for all of the talking heads who are suggesting that employers altogether avoid office lottery pools because of the legal risks, I say grow up and stop being such a killjoy. Lots of things have risk. I drive to work every day, even though my odds of dying in a car crash are 1 in 11,700. My odds of winning the Mega Millions are 1 in 302,575,350.

In other words, you are 26,000 times more likely to die on your way to work than win the lottery when you get there. So why not have a little fun, promote some office camaraderie, and spend a few dollars. And, in the extremely off chance that you actually win, the worst that will happen is that you might have a wait a bit for your pot o’ gold while some legal issues sort themselves out.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.