Discrimination and Unlawful Harassment

Blame it on the a a a a a alcohol

August 8, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

Image by Social Butterfly from Pixabay

When can you ask an employee if s/he has a problem with alcohol? Continue reading

Are you an HR department of one? The EEOC has your back with this great free resource.

August 7, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

Image by Mediamodifier from Pixabay

I don’t envy you.

If I were an HR department of one, I’d crash and burn. To wit, no one has ever accused me of putting the ‘human’ into human resources. Continue reading

How many things can you find wrong with this picture?

August 6, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

mistake-1966448_640

Remember those “what’s wrong with this picture” games that we played as children? Something like this.

Last night, I found the employment law equivalent from this recent Sixth Circuit opinion. Continue reading

Filling out those EEO-1s stinks. But, it could be worse…

August 1, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

Seal of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.svg

By U.S. Government – Extracted from PDF file here., Public Domain, Link

I want to give a little shoutout to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, with whom I am spending the day today in Atlanta at the 22nd annual Examining Conflicts in Employment Laws (EXCEL) Training Conference.

So, today’s post is chock full of recent EEOC news and notes. Continue reading

Does over-accommodating an employee’s disability expose your business to ADA claims?

July 30, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

By Flickr user Tyler Silvest Wikideas1 (talk) 21:43, 7 November 2016 (UTC) – Here, CC BY 2.0, Link

Well, it could.

But, will the plaintiff win? That’s a different story. Continue reading

Harassment training entirely via text message. Could this actually work?

July 25, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

Image by fajar budiman from Pixabay

Yesterday, I received an unsolicited email from a company called Pluto.

Pluto claims to offer a text message harassment training course that helps startups get compliant in less than 5 minutes a day. Continue reading

Can sexual harassment investigations create an intolerable and hostile work environment for the harasser?

July 24, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

Image Credit: Photofunia.com (http://photofunia.com/results/5d37ca3746867947238b45bf)

Sympathetic: sym·pa·thet·ic Continue reading

The case of Al Franken and why good workplace investigations are so darn important

July 23, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

CC BY 3.0

via Wikimedia Commons

Yesterday, The New Yorker published Jane Mayer’s piece entitled “The Case of Al Franken,” which is “a close look at the accusations against the former senator.”

TL;DR

🔥🚒👨‍🚒Firefighter fired for hostile social media posts may have been discriminated against🔥🚒👨‍🚒

July 22, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Seaman Barry Riley [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

A white South Carolina firefighter posted threats on Facebook that he would run over Black Lives Matters protesters.

The fire department began receiving complaints about these posts. Plus, the posts violated various provisions of the employee handbook. So, the next day, the firefighter was, err, fired. (For more on the initial lawsuit, you can read this story from CBS News.)

Fast forward three years and the firefighter is this close to a federal jury hearing his race discrimination claims. Continue reading

The top five, juiciest, greatest-ever HR compliance posts that I’ve read in the past 24 hours

July 18, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

Image by PixLoger from Pixabay

But, first, I have a confession to make. I only read six posts. Continue reading