I love the last week of the year. Most people take vacation. Not me. When work is slow, I like to be in the office. It’s when the office gets crazy that I take my vacation, because I know there is always someone else around to shoulder the burden. I’m…
The Employer Handbook Blog
Harassment victims don’t get a free lunch
A big part of my job as a labor and employment attorney is providing anti-harassment training to employees and supervisors. First, I help them identify what constitutes unlawful harassment in the workplace. Then I walk them through how to report and address it. Here, I emphasize that retaliation against a…
Thank You.
In June 2008, I read a one-page article about Twitter in BusinessWeek or some other financial magazine and thought to myself, “This is stupid. Why would anyone want to send text messages to total strangers?” So I signed up and created @emeyer88. And that was just the start. My story…
Employers can refuse to hire bankruptcy filers
Confession: I find bankruptcy VERY boring. And I loathe it. I’m a labor and employment attorney. When partners approach my door with bankruptcy assignments, I pick up the phone and pretend to yell at opposing counsel. So far I’m batting 1000. But when I learned that the Third Circuit in…
Best Practices for Investigating Employee Complaints
Recently, I offered readers two ways to avoid employee claims of unlawful harassment. But let’s assume someone complains. It will happen, trust me. Are you prepared to conduct a thorough and efficient workplace investigation? If not, check out my article in Bloomberg Law Reports. You can read it here.
Breastfeeding in the workplace: Is your business compliant?
Previously, I wrote (The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, enacted earlier this year, amended the
Can employees use your confidential documents to prove discrimination?
If you are reading this and you are a New Jersey employer, then the answer is yes. But only under certain circumstances. I’ll lay out the test for you after the jump. In Quinlan v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., the New Jersey Supreme Court adopted what it termed a “flexible totality of…
Holiday Party 101: How to Avoid The Lawsuit
Next week is our firm holiday party. And I am a big fan. At the party, I like to drink Four Loko boilermakers all night until I get blackout drunk socialize with colleagues for a few hours before cabbing home for the evening. Generally, I go crazy have a good…
Get a social media policy…before your employees pimp hookers on Facebook
If you know me, you know that I am a BIG advocate of social media policies for employers. I’ve written about it here. And I’ve spoken both to clients and at global conferences on the subject. If you have not adopted a social media policy yet, check out this story…
Two ways to avoid employee lawsuits
Recently, I had an article published in Bloomberg Law Reports about how employers can reduce their potential exposure to employee litigation by implementing a strong anti-harassment policy and then coupling that with training for supervisors and employees. If I do say so myself — and I do — this is…